Manny Pacquiao leaves no doubt

If you like your fights brutal, this one was for you.

If you are the kind of person who likes to watch defensive tackles crush quarterbacks or basketball teams keep their starters in with 50-point leads, this was for you.

David left his slingshot at home this time, David Diaz being the 135-pound opponent of the seasoned, mushrooming star Pacquiao, whose performance was yet another step in projecting him to the top of the sport's elite. Matter of fact, this David would have needed much more than a slingshot -- maybe a crowbar -- on a night when Pacquiao hit him with everything and left his face looking like a selection at your supermarket meat counter.

They fought eight-and-a-fraction rounds and Pacquiao won all eight. And certainly the fraction. All three judges had it that way and the toughest decision writers at ringside had in scoring the fight was whether or not to make several rounds 10-8, rather than the usual 10-9.

Pacquiao ended it in the ninth, with a right that staggered Diaz and a left that sent the rugged and game Chicagoan to the mat face first. Pacquiao went to a neutral corner and, the moment referee Vic Drakulich signaled the obvious by waving his hands, Pacquiao sprinted from the corner, bent over Diaz and then tried to help him up.

"My first concern was for Diaz," Pacquiao. "I prayed he was all right. I tried to pick him up."

Which was, as it can be only in boxing, after an hour of trying to knock him down.

Diaz actually held the title, only because Pacquiao hadn't fought at that weight. Pacquiao has now won five titles at lower weights, four of them recognized by sanctioning bodies, and has quickly vaulted himself to that place in boxing that commands the most money and the biggest star on the dressing-room door.

That the fight was so one-sided and so brutal was not Pacquiao's fault. To put it bluntly, this was a match made in hope, not in heaven. Diaz is 32, three years older than Pacquiao, and has been mostly a journeyman since he lost in the 1996 Olympics to the eventual silver medalist. His 34-1-1 record is deceiving because it was achieved mostly against a collection of competition you never heard of and never will.