and publicists in tow, to talk to anyone who will
listen about buying tickets for the closed circuit broadcast of the bout in
theaters all over the world.
DALLAS -- Oscar De La Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez are three days into what will be a 12-day, 23-city whirlwind tour of the United States to hype their June 7 battle for "Maximo Ultimo" as promoter Bob Arum keeps saying.
They will fight that night at Caesars Palace for "ultimate glory" all right,
but the $9 million per man they're guaranteed is reason enough for both to
fight. That kind of dough is reason enough to traverse America on two private
jets, entourages and publicists in tow, to talk to anyone who will
listen about buying tickets for the closed circuit broadcast of the bout in
theaters all over the world.
Arum decided to bypass pay-per-view home television, claiming "there's so
much stealing you can't believe it. Everybody's got those black boxes and they
steal the signal."
OBVIOUSLY, EVERYBODY IN AMERICA doesn't have those black boxes. But enough of them do that when he brought that up at a kickoff press conference at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles Monday, a raucous crowd of Chavez supporters hooted at him until he said in fractured Spanish with a Brooklyn accent, "Es verdad."
They applauded and nodded knowingly.
Applause has been in ample supply in LA, San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, San Antonio and Dallas.
What has been remarkable is that the fighter getting the applause has not been the American Golden Boy, De La Hoya, who was the United States' only boxing gold medal winner at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Rather, it has been the great but aging Mexican champion Chavez, who at 33, is no longer what he was but is still more than enough to hold the WBC super lightweight title and the hearts of the Spanish-speaking boxing public.
De La Hoya, by contrast, is a 23-year-old American who speaks Spanish and whose parents emigrated from Mexico years ago like so many in the West and Southwest. He has never had a hint of a scandal around him nor a hint of an opponent being able to handle his speed and punching power.
Yet even in Los Angeles, the city where he was born and raised, he was booed this week when he walked into the kickoff press conference while Chavez was cheered wildly.
THE NOISE REACHED THE POINT where two of Arum's publicists went to De La Hoya to reassure him. One, a veteran of such things named Bill Caplan, told him it was only 60 young kids in the crowd. He said he'd counted them. If he did, he must have been using the base-10 form of mathematics. But no matter. De La Hoya knows what he is up against, at least on this trip.
"It's all jealousy," De La Hoya says of the odd response he has been getting from too many crowds in his country this week. "It's mainly the younger crowd. I know I have a lot of fans out there but there are some fighters like (Roy) Jones and (Pernell) Whitaker and me who don't get hit. We have no scars so we don't look like fighters.
"The typical Latino (boxing) fan don't like that. I don't look like a fighter. A lot of people don't like this Golden Boy image. They think I got it all on a silver platter. They don't think I worked for it. They don't have any idea. But that's how it is. I understand it. It doesn't bother me. It will always be there, even if I beat Chavez."
On that score, De La Hoya is probably right, although his psyche was buoyed in El Paso when a huge crowd of fans rushed his van as it pulled up for another press conference at another hotel he wouldn't be staying at. It took a phalanx of security guards and publicists to push him through and into a back entrance through the kitchen. What he didn't see was that a few minutes later, Chavez's caravan arrived and his van didn't even get into the hotel driveway before it was surrounded. It was the difference between excitement and mania.
This reaction has baffled Chavez and amused him. Where De La Hoya is always "el muchacho", the young kid, when the champion speaks of De La Hoya, Chavez is the lordly king who expects the wild adulation he receives.
When he is asked what he thinks when he hears De La Hoya booed in Los Angeles while he is cheered, at first he is diplomatic. He says all boxing fans have their favorites and that is how it is. Not everyone favors him, he says. That is what boxing is about.
BUT WHEN HE IS ASKED to elaborate and compare the reaction De La Hoya got in his hometown to what Chavez would receive in Culican, Mexico, where he has lived all his life, he smiles.
Would they boo Chavez and cheer De La Hoya there?
"I don't think so," Chavez says. Then he laughs, believing he has won the first round of what will be a three-month fight for maximo ultimo.
Not to mention nine million bucks.
Bruno doesn't care that Tyson stopped him in five rounds seven years ago.
"I'm going to do Mike Tyson a favor. I'm going to wipe him out. He wants someone to take him out of all this. He looks like he's in a different world. I don't think he wants any of this. These people need to be put in their place, Bruno said. "After prison I thought he'd be a much wiser man but this prison thing has affected him very badly.
"Cus D'Amato (Tyson's first trainer and mentor) must be turning in his grave at the things he's saying. I thought prison was supposed to wise you up and make you a better man. He's getting worse, to be honest, both in the ring and out of the ring. His people say he's the baddest mamma-jamma but he trains behind closed doors.
"He has nothing but yes men around him. I don't want to get involved in shouting matches and saying naughty things. I'll hold it all in. I'll wait until March 16 and then I'll remember all those things he's said to me and his people have said to me and we'll see who's the baddest mamma-jamma."
That fight was planned for spring but Fenech's Australian backers failed to come up with the required guarantee so Nelson will fight James Leija June 1 on an HBO late night telecast instead
The Nelson fight was his first effort and he was in deep trouble from the opening bell. After Nelson stopped him, Ruelas claimed he had seen Garcia's face in the ring. He later denied this to a West Coast writer and now claims it was the result of bad garlic on his pasta and the flu (honest), but anyone who was there and saw his wild-eyed performance knows he didn't have a ghost of a chance against a 37-year-old former champion who hadn't fought in 19 months.
This time out, Ruelas faces nondescript Eduardo Lalo Perez. Ruelas' brother, Rafael, who lost his junior welterweight title on the same night as the Garcia fight, boxes Anthony Johnson on the same card.
Ruelas says Garcia is behind him now after four trips to a psychologist but others around him still wonder. Ruelas said he was scheduled to see the psychologist only once but he liked it enough to go back three more times on his own. "It was like talking to you guys (the press)," he said.
Rock Newman and executives at Time-Warner continue to do battle over a settlement designed to prevent them ending up in court March 11 to challenge HBO's contract with Bowe. Newman is trying to break it on a technicality but knowledgeable boxing observers believe the worst thing that could happen to Newman and Bowe is to win the suit. That would leave them free to roam but with no place to go except the deep freeze because King and Tyson want no part of them. HBO would likely not use them after losing control. HBO executives believe they will prevail but are growing weary of Newman's approach to business when he thinks he has the upper hand. ...
On April 12, Pernell Whitaker returns to the ring vs. Wilfredo Rivera, who is the kind of opponent who could be dangerous to the pound-for-pound champion. Whitaker should handle him easily but if he is not mentally sharp he could give him big problems. Also on that card will be WBA welterweight champion Ike Quartey vs. Vince Phillips. The fight, to be staged in St. Martens, is an effort by HBO to set up a big pay-day fight between Whitaker and the power punching Quartey ... Looks like Bryant Brannon is next up for Roy Jones, Jr. Who cares? Not the boxing public. ...
Marc Roberts, who manages Ray Mercer and Shannon Briggs, has branched into football by buying the business of veteran agent Steve Weinberg. Weinberg will head up the football division of Roberts' Worldwide Entertainment and Sports Corp. They negotiate for Mark Tuinei of the Cowboys, Tim McKyer of the Carolina Panthers and Don Griffin of the Baltimore-Cleveland Whatevers among others.
In addition to writing this exclusive column for SportsLine USA, Ron Borges covers boxing for The Boston Globe.
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