PERFECTLY INCORRECT

Yankees are to fiscal conservatism É what Don King is to understatement É what rigatoni is to the Atkins Diet. With a cigarette (preferred brand: Marlboro) dangling from his lips and a beer (preferred brand: Budweiser) sitting by his side, the WBA/WBC welterweight champion from Nicaragua revels in his image.

 "The day I stop smoking," he said, "I'll get sick." Ever since the retirement of Roberto Duran, the gist of Spanish-language quotes has been lost in the translation. But not when Mayorga talks trash. On IBF welterweight champion Cory Spinks, who will face Mayorga on 13 December in Atlantic City: "If I've killed presidents and generals, you don't think I can kill a private?" On Oscar De La Hoya: "I don't like him.

I see him as a mama's boy, and he talks too much." When told that De La Hoya's mother is dead, Mayorga responded with a matter-of-fact nod. "I know." On Vernon Forrest, before their rematch (as told to boxingtalk.net): " É He's my son. I'm his father É I'm very upset at him because he never sent me a Father's Day card for Father's Day. Make sure you let my son know I'm very upset.

After I knock my son out, maybe I'll give him a job carrying my bags." After a title-winning knockout of Six Heads Lewis and a pair of wins over Forrest, there is no longer doubt that Mayorga is ring-real. He belongs in the pound-for-pound top 10, and those who dismissed him as a one-hit wonder probably thought Bruce Springsteen was never going to make it out of New Jersey.

As boxing's power division shifts to junior middleweight, Mayorga is poised for a full-scale frontal assault. He says he'll rise in weight after his fight with Spinks. In fact, his promoter, Don King, has Mayorga's signature on contracts for matches with Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, and Fernando Vargas, not to mention welter champion Antonio Margarito and middleweight king Bernard Hopkins.

Knowing King, he also has Mayorga signed for a worldwide singing tour, six autobiographies, and a Spanish-language remake of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. "It'll be Don's responsibility to get the kid the biggest fights," said Xavier James, HBO's vice president of programming. "To be truly marketable, you have to be able to fight, and you have to have the personality to attract the casual boxing fan. Mayorga is a breath of fresh air." Prior to the New York City press conference for his unification bout vs Spinks, Mayorga signed 100 boxing gloves in a ballroom at the Hilton Hotel.

Instead of his name, he carefully penned his nickname, "El Matador", on each glove. When asked if he wasn't more bull than matador, Mayorga again proved his wit is faster than his hands. "I end up killing the bull," he said, "so I'm the matador." Fighters from the poverty-infested streets of Managua, Nicaragua, aren't afforded the exposure of, say, a U.S. Olympian. Mayorga needed friends in big places, or at least friends with big hair, to introduce him to the rest of the world. In December 2000, Mayorga was 21-3-1, and as anonymous as the timekeeper at a club show in Bristol. "The first time we saw him," recalled Bob Goodman, who runs boxing for Don King Productions, "I was with Don at the [annual] KO Drugs show in Venezuela. We put a couple of kids on the show.

Mayorga fought a kid who was 15-0 [Venezuela's Adolfo Salazar, who had scored KOs in all of his wins]. The first time Mayorga throws a fucking punch, he nails the other kid, who is out. I said: `Who the fuck is this?' "We signed Mayorga at a dinner that night. He was flexing his muscles and drinking a beer. I didn't think anything of the beer because it was right after a fight." Before signing with King, Mayorga was ranked ninth at junior middleweight by the WBA.

Immediately after, he landed in the number three slot at welterweight. When Six Heads won the vacant title by stopping James Page, Mayorga became the mandatory challenger. If you think Mayorga's rise would have been as swift without King's influence, I have some real estate in downtown Baghdad that's an absolute steal. On 30 March 2002, Mayorga, then 28, challenged Six Heads in Reading, Pennsylvania. Making his third defense, Lewis came into the bout with 19 KOs in 21 wins.

By the second round, he was unabashedly clinching, and by the fourth, he was reeling from Mayorga's awkward powerpunches. It was an ugly fight with a revealing ending; after Mayorga dropped the champion with a pair of rights in the fifth, Lewis rose at referee Rudy Battle's count of six. But when asked if he wanted to continue, he offered no response. Just like that, Mayorga, who grew up without electricity or running water, was a world champion.

Ten months later, King boldly matched Mayorga with the division's top fighter, unbeaten WBC champion and pound-for-pound entrant Vernon Forrest, who was coming off a pair of wins against Shane Mosley. Forrest was floored in the first round. Upon rising, the lanky welterweight engaged the 5ft 10ins Mayorga in a shootout. By the third, he was flat again, and seconds later referee Marty Denkin stopped the bout. "I was fighting a clown," Mayorga said as HBO's Larry Merchant lit him a cigarette. "I didn't knock him out in the first round because my corner told me to take it easy." In July, Mayorga and Forrest were rematched, with the former defending the WBA and WBC titles.

It wasn't as eventful as Mayorga's previous fights; the highlight came in the fourth, when Mayorga, 26-3-1 (23 KOs), twice dropped his guard and instructed Forrest to hit him. Mayorga accepted the blows as if they were pillow taps in a play-fight. It was a macho moment of gamesmanship that summoned memories of a lightweight Roberto Duran. Forrest fought a smarter fight and rallied late with a consistent body attack. Still, the judges favoured Mayorga by majority scores of 116-112, 115-114, and 114-114.

 Mayorga delivers ridiculously wide shots and often sacrifices balance for advantageous punching range. His style can be described as awkward or just plain ugly. Nonetheless, beating Forrest on the American's terms stamped him as legitimate. It had been tempting to dismiss Mayorga's win over Lewis fight because of Six Head's suspect chin. Not so the Forrest fights.

"Mayorga is effective for several reasons," said Dan Rafael of USA Today. "Even though he's technically inferior to his opponents, he's fearless, and I think the other fighters sense that. They think they're in the ring with this crazy wild man, so intimidation is a big part of his game. He also throws punches from all angles, so his opponents never know where the shots are coming from. And Mayorga doesn't care where they're coming from either. He just keeps winging, and he has great power, so when he lands, the punches do damage.

" As for the Nicaraguan's stamina, let's just say the truth isn't all cigarette ashes and spilled beer. "That's just an image," said Tony Gonzalez, who interpreted for Mayorga in New York City. "In camp, he gets serious." Gonzalez has also worked as Roberto Duran's attorney for the past seven years.

He acknowledges that Mayorga and Duran are similar, especially in terms of "likes, dislikes, and habits". In 1998, Mayorga lost consecutive 10-round decisions to Roger Flores in Managua and Henry Castillo in Costa Rica, where El Matador lived at the time. (He returned to Nicaragua four years ago.) Conditioning wasn't a priority back then. "I lost; I don't make any excuses," Mayorga said. "But at the time, I was boxing for the hell of it. I wasn't taking care of myself. I would show up at the weigh-in just to take a fight so I could have money in my pocket.

" His image aside, Mayorga's attitude is different now. "Once he gets into training, he trains hard," Goodman said. "The beer ends and the cigarettes -almost nothing. In the second Forrest fight, he was still winging shots in the 12th round. A lot of it is sheer will and determination. The kid won't be stopped. But he does train when in camp." "The stuff about the smoking and drinking is overhyped," Rafael added. "He may do all those things -I even saw him drinking a Corona a couple of nights before the Forrest rematch. But he came into his fights with Forrest and Lewis in great shape.

That's why he made weight so easily." Mayorga, who turned 30 in October, is a married man with children, but he likes to have a bachelor's fun. A rich bachelor. He spends money as if he can pump up his bank account with the snap of a finger, and he races cars through the streets of Managua at a frightening speed. "Now the cops just wave when I pass them by," he said with a wink.

Image aside, there's a depth about the man, and it's related to his upbringing. "I was with him in Nicaragua about six months ago," said Carl King, who manages Mayorga. "We went to his mom's house so we could see where he grew up. It was humbling to say the least. The worst ghetto in America is like Caesars Palace compared to what I saw.

I would love to take my children there so they could see how blessed they are to be Americans." Mayorga told King that when the time comes for him to lose, he hopes the winner is another poor fighter. Mayorga spent $40,000 so his mother can have lights. When he's home, he estimates that 40 neighbours visit him a day, and not all of them are satisfied to say hello. "They run the risk of losing their houses over $1,000 or less, and I help them out if I can," Mayorga said. "One young girl had fallen and broken her front teeth and I helped her.

Then there are university students who can't afford their tuition." Interestingly, Mayorga insists that he checks out each story before reaching into his pocket. His generosity is not reason to play the fool. Nor are his championship belts. Until the press conference in New York City, Mayorga didn't know Spinks was a titlist or that their 13 December showdown would be a unification bout. But by the end of the day, he was firing one-liners at Leon's little boy -especially after Spinks called him a bum. "Do you know what a faggot is?" an enraged Mayorga said. "Can I sew a pair of nuts on him so he can stand and fight in front of me?" Who knows if Ricardo Mayorga will be remembered as one of the greatest welterweight champions in history. But one thing's already been established during his tumultuous title reign: Political correctness is dying a loud and unceremonious death.