FUN TIME FOR OSCAR

Absolutely amazing. Oscar De La Hoya takes a fight that everyone knew would be a mismatch yet pulls in a crowd of 11,025 at the Mandalay Bay casino resort in Las Vegas and attracts more than 300,000 pay-per-view television purchases in America at a price of $49.95 for the event. This man is a phenomenal attraction. People will pay to see him, in the flesh or on the television screen, regardless of the opponent. Hero worship? As close to it as it gets.

Oscar, who is 30, says he may not be around much longer. We have learned that we cannot always take him at his word. But there seems a possibility that the Oscar show may indeed be coming towards its final curtain. The boxing public — make that the Oscar public — wants to enjoy him while it can.

And the huge gathering of the faithful enjoyed his seven rounds workout — for that was all it was — against Yory Boy Campas. There were roars when De La Hoya opened up with rapid-fire bursts of combination punches or targeted Campas’s head for single right-handers. The fact that nothing much was coming back from Campas suited De La Hoya’s followers. They had, after all, come to see one man, not a two-sided contest.

It was an evening that was little more than a celebration of target practice. Campas showed a willingness to walk in and take punches and that was about his only contribution. He threw an occasional left hook and landed some of them, but there wasn’t a lot of intensity there.

Much was made before the fight of Yory Boy having partaken of what was said to be a Mexican Indian potion with magical qualities. Oscar played his part in the PR exercise by demanding that Campas be tested in case he was taking an illegal stimulant. Whatever was in the so-called “all natural” concoction, it might as well have been a sedative for all the aggression that Campas showed.

No, Campas was there to perform his part, which was to give Oscar some rounds of boxing prior to the more serious business of the Golden Boy’s rematch with Sugar Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on 13 September. (The Campas affair also, of course, allowed De La Hoya to pick up another big purse — about $11 million)

It is hard to say whether De La Hoya’s seven rounds of dishing it out gave students of the game the chance to make a more informed assessment of his rematch with Mosley.

It was obvious that De La Hoya was not in optimum fighting shape. His trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr, admitted as much before the bout.

And, as De La Hoya said afterwards, a fighter can come down to the level of his opponent, which the Golden Boy may well have done against Campas.

Factor in the strained left wrist that De La Hoya said he suffered in the opening round, and it is clear that we were not seeing the Golden Boy at his best.

But, allowing for all of the above, there were aspects of De La Hoya’s performance that just might have given his camp some concern, no matter what might be said for public consumption.

Foremost was the fact that De La Hoya did not seem to be punching with a lot of authority.

Campas has a good chin, and he was the naturally bigger man, but the fact is that De La Hoya’s blows weren’t budging the 31-year-old warhorse. The snappy combinations knocked back Campas’s head and had his eyes swollen and bruised by the fourth, but Yory Boy just kept marching in, even shaking his head in the “Nothing” manner.

So, one has to wonder if De La Hoya, who won his first world championship at 130lbs (9st 4lbs), can be considered a devastating puncher at 154lbs (11st) even though he has won three title fights at light-middle, this one being a defence of his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association belts.

Also, he seemed to be huffing and puffing a little, which we can put down to his not being in tip-top shape.

But was I the only one who thought there was a little “give” in De La Hoya on the rare moments when Campas dug a hook to the body, as if Oscar doesn’t at all care for it downstairs?

His left jab was quick but not powerful, and the left hook and left uppercut, once his most lethal weapons, were seldom in evidence, although he threw lots of right hands.

Perhaps we can blame this lack of left-hand bombing on De La Hoya’s tender wrist, but this was the first of his fights I can recall in which one didn’t have the sense of expectation that a big left hand could be coming at any moment.

All of this left me with the vague sense of De La Hoya not being completely “right” in this fight.

Now it could be that all De La Hoya needs is to get back in the gym for full-throttle, mega-fight training, be fully focused and ratchet up the concentration level another few notches and everything will be fine when he faces Mosley in September. I am not so sure if it will be that simple.

Mosley is burning with a very real sense of injustice over the way the purse money is being divided for the rematch — with Sugar Shane very much on the thin end.

If De La Hoya is underestimating Mosley, he might be making a major mistake.

Also, Mosley believes he sees flaws in De La Hoya’s new style of boxing.

After two years under Floyd Mayweather Sr’s teaching, what we are seeing is a re-tooled De La Hoya, a slick, cute, stylist who moves a lot, boxes in a relaxed manner and holds his hands low, rather than the hands-up, left-hooking machine that some thought was slightly robotic.

De La Hoya has grown into this style, and it served him well against Fernando Vargas. Against Mosley? I’m not so sure. I will say I am feeling a lot less sure about De La Hoya winning the rematch than I was before the Campas outing.

Back to the mismatch, and while realising it was not a fight that De La Hoya took too seriously, I must confess to a sense of disappointment.

De La Hoya had told us before the fight that he would bang with Campas, that he wanted to be the first to put the long-serving veteran down for the count.

And there was a time in his career, I think, when De La Hoya would indeed have gone in and sought to destroy his man — goodness knows he couldn’t miss Campas with anything.

Instead, having teased us with the possibility of an explosive showing, De La Hoya boxed almost in safety-first fashion, hitting Campas and then moving around him or dancing away so that the slow-moving challenger didn’t know where to find him.

Just one or two more barrages from De La Hoya in rounds four, five or six and I think that the referee, Vic Drakulich, would probably have moved in to call a halt. I noticed Campas give a resigned shake of his head as he went to his corner after the fifth and sixth. But De La Hoya spaced out his assaults, as if being careful not to expend too much energy. Or maybe he didn’t really want to hurt Campas. After all, Oscar knew, better than any of us, just what he had in front of him.

I counted six occasions in the fight when Campas’s ill-fitting gum shield either fell from his mouth or was sent flying by a punch, which seemed to underline his general air of futility. Finally, in the sixth, referee Drakulich told the judges to take a point away, not that this made any difference as Campas was losing every round anyway. And in the seventh, with six seconds remaining in the round, the referee finally waved an end to the proceedings as Campas’s handlers scrambled up the steps to signal their man’s surrender.

De La Hoya came out without a mark on him. Easy money indeed. But for anyone tempted to call the event a rip off, the fact is that everyone knew what they would be getting. There were boos from those who thought Campas should have been allowed to take even more punishment, but by and large the spectators seemed happy afterwards as they shuffled from the arena and back to the casino. They had seen the Golden Boy, and it was enough.

For additional coverage of this show, including Erik Morales vs Bobby Boy Velardez and Frontline Diary, see June issue