LAS VEGAS – Rarely is there joy in writing an obituary. This time it feels like a public service to write about the demise of Oscar De La Hoya's boxing career and to offer free advice.

Yes, Golden Boy, you should hang up your gloves.

Retire. Spend your free time with your wife and family. Continue to grow your burgeoning Golden Boy Promotions.

But whatever you do, do not step in the ring for a professional prize fight again. Ever. Not after the beating you took Saturday night at the hands of the significantly smaller Manny Pacquiao, who is not only four inches shorter, but whose reach is five inches less.

Pacquiao is boxing's pound-for-pound king and the baddest little man on the planet so there's no shame in losing to him. It's just the manner in which De La Hoya was embarrassed and beaten up that left such a bad taste. His fans, the crossover crowds that have worshipped at his boots since he was a gold medalist in the 1992 Summer Olympics, booed him lustily when his swollen face was shown postfight on the MGM Grand Garden Arena's big screens.

"Freddie, you were right," De La Hoya told Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, who trained De La Hoya against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May of 2007. "I don't have it anymore," he said in the ring after the fight.

Truer words were never spoken in the boxing game.

Now 35 years old, De La Hoya's reflexes are gone, he gets hit too much, his face swells up and, as Roach claimed, De La Hoya can no longer pull the trigger. Because with Pacquiao's relentless style, the Filipino national treasure was open for counter-punches and that vaunted left hook. De La Hoya's body could not answer his brain's signal to unload.

Forget the auto industry's Big Three; the Golden Boy needed a government bailout.

"My style is to go forward but he was boxing on his toes all night and waiting for me to make my mistake," De La Hoya said. "I didn't have the strength to stop him."

And so, Nacho Beristain threw in the towel before the ninth round, De La Hoya's trainer saying his charge was "empty." It was the only thing Beristain did right all night, explaining, "I didn't want him to leave his greatness in the ring." Too late.

What had been suspected for years manifested itself in eight shocking rounds.

So dominant was Pacquiao, it looked as though De La Hoya's game plan was him willing to take shots from a smaller guy to try and get him to punch himself out, a kind of rope-a-dope strategy that worked in 1974 for Muhammad Ali against George Foreman.

That's how many shots De La Hoya absorbed. No wonder he had to skip the post-fight news conference; Pacquiao had sent him to the hospital.

That's how one-sided the action was; De La Hoya had no answer. And he should have no future in the ring. His fights have become events, more circus than Mike Tyson-style sideshows but if he continues, he gets mentioned in the same breath as Iron Mike.

Golden Boy Promotions partners Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley both sounded as if they wanted De La Hoya to retire.

"Oscar had a hell of a career," Hopkins said.

I've said it before, mostly to describe the Raiders and the Bush Administration, but the sentiment is appropriate here – it would be funny were it not so sad.

De La Hoya is a Hall of Famer, a crossover icon, the boxing game's biggest earner, a role model not only for Mexican-Americans, but for all Americans. Yes, he's a tad tarnished, but who isn't? And that's how he should be remembered. Not as a sad punching bag or looking as stiff as the statue of him erected this week in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles.

"He's still my idol," Pacquiao said.

And this from Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, De La Hoya's first promoter and current rival.

"What a shining light he was … and how he helped the sport for so many years," Arum said. "So if he retires, God bless him and thank him for all he's done for the sport … ."

Adios, Golden Boy. Por favor.

Call The Bee's Paul Gutierrez, (916) 326-5556.