LAS VEGAS – Philadelphia’s Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins put his hard-earned and undisputed middleweight title on the line Saturday night against Oscar De La Hoya, the fighter known as the “Golden Boy” who had accomplished just about everything short of claiming a unified title during his 12-year career.

In a fight that was scheduled for 12 rounds at MGM Grand Arena, De La Hoya engaged the rugged Hopkins just as he had promised. But he went down and out after taking a left hook to the body by Hopkins at 1 minute, 38 seconds of the ninth round.

Hopkins improved to 44-2-1 with 31 knockouts and one no-contest. De La Hoya is now 37-3, with 29 KOs.

“I wanted to show everybody that I could box,” Hopkins said. “I came light so I could be faster and lighter and still have my power. I was boxing early so I could figure Oscar out, to show that I could outbox him. I think I did.”

De La Hoya said he was stunned.

“I felt perfect. He just caught,” De La Hoya said. “He threw the body shot and he caught me. I tried getting up. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t breath.”

A sellout crowd of about 17,000 fans, including the usual bevy of stars and starlets, was on hand to watch a match-up that was expected to garner a record number of pay-per-view buys for a non-heavyweight event.

The old mark was the $71.4 million that was generated by De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad in “99.

In earning a purse of $10 million, the 39-year-old Hopkins enjoyed the biggest payday of his 16-year career. De La Hoya, 31 and a former Olympic gold medalist who rose to become the biggest attraction in boxing today, took home $30 million.

Both fighters will receive even more if pay-per-view revenues exceed a certain level.

Hopkins, considered to be the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world entering the fight, extended his middlewight record for successful title defenses to 19 and still hasn’t been defeated since losing a decision to Roy Jones in 1993.

De La Hoya was the owner of the minor WBO middleweight title, which he claimed in June with a disputed unanimous decision over Felix Sturm.

He climbed into the ring last night as the underdog, which was a first for native of East Los Angeles.

During the 24 hours before the mega-bout, it was learned that De La Hoya suffered a small cut just below his two middle fingers while getting tape removed from his left hand following a workout on Wednesday.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission gave De La Hoya permission to treat the injury with a shot of lidocaine, a pain killer which under normal circumstances is a banned substance in the sport of boxing.

De La Hoya needed 11 stitches to close the wound.

It was biggest fight of both fighters’ careers, not only in terms of money but also in sheer magnitude.

De La Hoya, making only his second foray into the middleweight division, had been outpointed in his three previous most noteworthy outings, twice by Shane Mosley (at 146 and 154), and once by Trinidad at 147.

Hopkins scored a spectacular 12th-round TKO over Trinidad in 2001, but he did not have the opponents on his resume that compared to the list of champions and former champions that De La Hoya had faced.

But all that mattered was what happened Saturday night, when Hopkins had two inches in height over the challenger but not as much quickness and speed.

In the days leading up to the fight, where Hopkins was loose and seeming to be having a good time, De La Hoya’s demeanor belied either fright, or intensity and focus.

Hopkins weighed in at 156 on Friday at the pre-fight weigh-in instead of coming in at his usual weight of about 160.

De La Hoya, whose request for a maximum weight limit of 158 was agreed to by Hopkins in order to make the date, weighed 155 the day before the fight and his body looked much better than it did when he went in against Sturm and struggled to finish.

Both boxers no doubt gained several pounds in the 29 hours or so between the weigh-in and fight night.

Hopkins and De La Hoya came out in an almost customary feel-each-other-out mode, with a combination of punches by De La Hoya that looked good but were off the mark drawing the biggest reaction from the crowd during the first three rounds.

After five rounds, Hopkins was ahead 3-2 on one card, and halfway through the match, neither fighter had landed any truly heavy punches and it was about even. Hopkins appeared to have a round on De La Hoya after seven.

As in his previous fights in Las Vegas, the popular De La Hoya was overwhelmingly the fan favorite.

He was preceded in the ring by seven musicians wearing white suits, with one singing a serenade. Hopkins was accompanied by a rapper singing “Here is the champ.”

When De La Hoya first appeared in the arena and made his way to the ring – Hopkins came out last and was greeted much better than he had been at the weigh-in – the crowd roared and females shrieked.

“Every woman in America is going to hate me after Sept. 18,” Hopkins jokingly said the day before the fight.

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(c) 2004, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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AP-NY-09-19-04 0035EDT