Mayweather comes out on top

On a day when time was passing slowly, Floyd Mayweather changed with a blink of an eye.

Stuck -- by choice -- in his Las Vegas Hilton suite and with little on TV except a couple of baseball playoff games and some run-of-the-mill college football, he was predictably fidgety.

Downstairs, in the Hilton Theater, support personnel were bustling as the crowd began filtering in for a nationally televised fight of considerable significance.

"Genaro told me, 'I'm going to beat the (expletive) out of this guy,'" Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler said of a conversation with the reigning World Boxing Council 130-pound champion, Genaro Hernandez of Los Angeles, hours before he was to face Mayweather in Saturday evening's main event.

At the time it seemed that had Mayweather heard the remark firsthand, he probably would have shot back a damning prediction of his own. Regarded as confident to the point of being cocky, the Las Vegan hasn't been much for letting a cheap shot fly by unnoticed.

Call it his youthful exuberance.

That said, fast forward and imagine this perplexing conclusion to what was the finest day of Mayweather's 21-year life: The newly crowned champion, all eyes upon him, gracious and humble almost to a fault. At the post-fight press conference -- after beating the tar out of Hernandez for eight full rounds -- stood what appeared to be a transformed man.

Respecting his elder, he allowed the 32-year-old Hernandez to monopolize the podium.

And, in a little role reversal of his own, Hernandez used the spotlight to toss accolade after accolade Mayweather's way.

"I was defeated in a real bad way," Hernandez said of a shockingly one-sided fight. "I never considered I'd lose a fight the way I did.

"There ain't nobody out there right now at 130 pounds who can beat Floyd Mayweather. He was just too quick and too good for me. He proved to me that he's the best."

Contrasts were all over the place. Mayweather didn't even look like he had been in a fight, while Hernandez's face gave the appearance of a man smacked to the pavement by a flatbed truck. And at a time when Mayweather's boyish braggadocio could have gotten the best of him, he came across as the harmlessly cute kid from next door.

"Best fight I ever had," he said, speaking softly. "But I can't give myself a '10.' Maybe an '8.'"

Hernandez all but rolled with laughter, or at least as much laughter as a man with a broken nose and a purplish, bruised face can muster.

"He's lying," Hernandez said with a wide smile. "He was a '10.' Ain't nobody ever hit me the way he hit me tonight."

Behold the new king.

"I told Floyd in the ring that from here on out nobody would beat him but himself," promoter Bob Arum relayed to still-stunned reporters following the fight. "He was so good he made a wonderful, wonderful fighter look ordinary.

"We now have very, very, very high hopes for Floyd."

The latest boxing world champion from Las Vegas is the one with the most promise. While colleagues Frank Liles, Vince Phillips and Freddie Norwood battle age and assorted physical and promotional problems, Mayweather has a golden path laid out in front of him.

Up next: Wild man Angel Manfredy, an unconventional and garishly costumed banger with a 25-2-1 record and some juice with the TV networks. HBO wants to match him with Mayweather, with the working date Dec. 12 and the likely site New York's Madison Square Garden.

And to think, not everyone in Arum's employ felt Mayweather was ready for Hernandez, let alone Manfredy and beyond.

"There's only one way to find out," Trampler said before Saturday's fight, reflecting on his earlier statements that Mayweather was being rushed into the title fight with a wily, veteran champion. "If he wins, I was wrong. But until this is resolved, I'm going with Genaro Hernandez as the best junior lightweight in the world."

It took about two rounds to prove that wrong. Mayweather was unmercifully slamming Hernandez with both hands and taking little in return, cleverly outmaneuvering a skilled professional who came into the fight with a glittering 38-1-1 record.

Round after round Mayweather punished Hernandez until Rudy Hernandez couldn't take it anymore. Genaro's brother and trainer said eight (rounds) was enough and told the fighter it was time to quit.

"Father Time caught up to us," Rudy would say later. "We're no different than anyone else. There was no point keeping my brother in that ring."

At the time of the stoppage, Mayweather had won all eight rounds on one judge's card and had taken seven of eight on the other two judges' cards. A fight that appeared to be a toss-up on paper was, instead, a rout.

"It was a no-contest," Arum said. "Floyd was that much superior."

The new champion, now 18-0 with 14 knockouts, took it all in a mature stride.

"Thanks, thanks very much," he said as well-wishers patted him on the back and clutched at his hands. "I'm real happy with everything that's happened. It's been a great day."

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