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June 1998
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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LET'S GET BUSY
With three 12-rounders in his last five wins, undefeated Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya needs to revive his image as an exciter. But scheduled matches against Charpentier, Chavez and Campas hardly set the pulse racing. GRAHAM HOUSTON reports |
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DREAM TEAM: but a match between Olympic gold winners David Reid (1996)
and De La Hoya (1992) is a long way off
- Get Big Pic
The big Oscar De La Hoya fights that the boxing public most wants to see
are still, at time of writing, as far away as ever.
The fans and the writers want to see the Golden Boy face welterweight
champions Felix Trinidad and Ike Quartey. Instead, De La Hoya defends
his World Boxing Council title against Frenchman Patrick Charpentier
at El Paso, Texas on 13 June, then gives ageing legend Julio Cesar
Chavez a rematch at Las Vegas on 18 September.
Charpentier, sure, we can understand that. The Frenchman is the WBC's
mandatory challenger and therefore has to be accommodated. But Chavez?
Two years ago, De La Hoya had Chavez bloody and bemused in four rounds
at Las Vegas when they were fighting for the super lightweight
(10st., or 140 lbs) championship.
Both are two years older but De La Hoya, 25, has grown bigger and
stronger. Chavez, who will be 36 in July, has simply got slower.
Michael Katz of the New York Daily News says that De La Hoya's promoter,
Bob Arum, has "his star in the loser's bracket" with his choice of
opponents. Katz wrote in an April column that Arum's "only interest
is most money for least risk and the public be damned".
A Los Angeles-area sports columnist, the veteran Doug Krikorian,
wrote that De La Hoya has "turned his version of the welterweight
title into a total joke" with recent and forthcoming matches.
Krikorian describes Chavez as "totally, ravaged, totally over-the-hill,
totally pathetic".
Arum explained his position in a telephone conference call earlier
this year. He said: "I pick opponents based on their economic value,
not on how good or bad the opponent is vis-a-vis another opponent."
It is Arum's view that Chavez is the most marketable opponent. And
also, it goes without saying, less dangerous than younger, unbeaten
fighters, Trinidad and Quartey.
But it is not solely up to Arum who decides De La Hoya's opponents.
It is a team decision, with De La Hoya's father, his trainer and a
businessman adviser all having their say. De La Hoya himself, it is
believed, makes the final decision.
He has wanted Chavez again ever since the older man's sore-loser
comments after the last fight. A cut over the eye that caused the
ending in 1996 lent an air of inconclusiveness. There seems genuine
animosity between the two men. Because of this, and, of course, of
Chavez's big-name appeal, the rematch, whether we like it or not,
will be a major event and a pay-per-view television success in the
United States.
Yes, a fight between De La Hoya and either Trinidad or Quartey would
be far more intriguing to those who really understand boxing than
what is seen as a foregone conclusion with Chavez. De La Hoya versus
Trinidad would be the most compelling welterweight match since the
Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns fight in 1981. It would match two
young, good-looking, undefeated champions, each capable of knocking
out the other.
However, the obvious sticking point here is that De La Hoya is linked
to American premium cable TV giant Home Box Office and its pay-per-view
arm, TVKO, while Trinidad, through his promoter, Don King, is tied to
HBO's rival, the Showtime TV network and its PPV offshoot, Showtime
Event Television.
Making the match is far more difficult than it was to get Leonard
and Hearns into the ring in 1981, when closed-circuit TV - with fans
watching on big screens in arenas across America - was still the
dominant medium.
De La Hoya versus Quartey, or De La Hoya against Jose Luis Lopez,
the Mexican who fought a draw with Quartey, would be excellent
matches but neither of these opponents is widely known outside
the boxing fraternity. Which brings us back to Chavez and the
matter of marketability.
When Michael Katz talks about matches being made with a view to most
money for least risk, he is absolutely right. But there are those
who might say that this is what good promotion and efficient
management is all about.
De La Hoya is so charismatic a figure, with his film-star looks and
easy charm, that he can generate millions even against fairly
ordinary opposition. His opponents have been chosen with great care
and matches have been made with perfect timing, often against quality
fighters who were either smaller men or in decline but, to be fair,
neither of these descriptions applied when De La Hoya met Los Angeles
rival Rafael Ruelas in a clash of lightweight champions. It looked
like being a testing fight but De La Hoya took care of business in
two rounds.
Despite the barbs of critics De La Hoya is doing what he and those
around him feel is best for De La Hoya. He is making millions with
little risk, true, but he is also honing his skills, maturing and
gaining experience, to give himself the best possible chance of
winning when, and if, a fight with a Trinidad or a Quartey can be made.
When De La Hoya says he wants to meet these fighters, he sounds
believable. But they are in his future. So is Keith Mullings, the
super welter champ who was profiled in this magazine last month.
For the foreseeable future, De La Hoya will fight opponents whom he
is likely to defeat convincingly in bouts that will see him enter
the ring a massive favourite in the betting. After Charpentier (De
La Hoya was 12-1 on favourite at time of writing) and Chavez, the
next two opponents being considered are Mexico's Yory Boy Campas
(stopped by Trinidad and Jose Luis Lopez, but who has since won a
light-middle world title) and veteran contender Oba Carr (stopped by
Trinidad, outpointed by Quartey and more recently held to a gruelling
draw by veteran Detroit rival Anthony Jones).
The fact is that De La Hoya does not need a Trinidad or a Quartey to
make major money. He is in the fortunate position of being the sort
of fighter whom the public wants to see, almost regardless of whom
he meets. He brings a sense of occasion to the ring, a touch of
Hollywood that is backed by ability and punching power. The crowds
at De La Hoya fights, and the TV millions keeping them distant
company, do not seem to care too much if the other man is outclassed:
the sheer star-power of De La Hoya, the feeling that they are
witnessing a dramatic entertainment event, is enough.
Promoter Arum has announced that 34,000 tickets generating $2.1
million in revenue were sold the first day of going on sale for
De La Hoya's bout with Charpentier, which will be outdoors at the
50,000-seat Sun Bowl arena in El Paso, the west Texas town those
of us of a certain age will associate with a 1950s hit song by
Marty Robbins. Every ringside seat, apparently, was sold in 10
minutes. "I've never seen anything like it in all my years in
boxing," Arum said.
So, from a purely business perspective, De La Hoya is doing very
nicely indeed. Yes, we would love to see him in the sort of fight
where there was a sense of danger. But boxing today is not conducted
the way it was in times past, when there was only one world title in
each of eight weight divisions, when the best fighters fought the
best to reach the top and when Sugar Ray Robinson fought Jake La
Motta twice in 21 days. Those days have gone forever.
Our hope is that there will come a time when De La Hoya feels the
need within himself, and not simply because he has been goaded by
critics' unkind comments, to demand matches with the toughest
opponents available. That time will come only when De La Hoya's
professional pride and ego demands it. This is a man, or so it
seems to me, who is taking his time about facing the ultimate
challenges but who, nevertheless, will not want to leave the game
with the accusation that he never faced the fighters who truly
stood a chance of beating him. There is toughness behind the GQ image.
And so we make do with what is at hand, starting with Charpentier,
the official No. 1 challenger.
It is a sad fact of boxing today that the mandatory challengers of
the various organisations are not always, maybe hardly ever, the best
fighters in the division. Charpentier seems a case in point.
True, the Frenchman is a former European champion who never lost that
title in the ring (choosing to vacate it so he could concentrate on
the world title challenge) but he has not beaten one opponent who
could be considered a top world-class boxer.
Charpentier, 27, brings a record of 26 wins, four losses and a
technical draw (when he was cut after a clash of heads in an
undercard bout at Atlantic City, his only previous U.S. appearance).
He has stopped 21 opponents, so clearly he can punch somewhat.
Probably his most significant win - and certainly the most vivid - was
in France two years ago when, behind on points and in danger of being
stopped due to a cut over the eye, he landed a big right to save the
day in the seventh round against Scot Gary Jacobs. But Jacobs said
afterwards that he had struggled to make weight and subsequently
moved up to the light-middle division.
Charpentier has been stopped three times in his four defeats but his
tendency to cut around the eyes was probably the main factor. He has
not lost in three years, and the veteran New Yorker Gil Clancy,
brought on board by Team De La Hoya to offer advice on strategy,
says he has studied the Frenchman on video and considers Charpentier
to be a tough customer, definitely no pushover. But one wonders if
the former manager of great welter champ Emile Griffith was being
just a little diplomatic.
The overwhelming consensus in the American fight trade is that
Charpentier stands practically no chance. But this is De La Hoya's
first appearance in six months, after recovering from a nagging
injury to his left wrist that caused the bout to be postponed from
its original date of 28 February.
De La Hoya, who has won 27 consecutive bouts, with 22 opponents
halted, says that for the first time in several fights he will be
able to punch at full strength with the left hand. He says that he
is growing into the welterweight division and feeling stronger than
ever.
In five title fights last year he went the full 12 rounds three times
and his only spectacular performance was the second-round knockout
over Kenyan David Kamau at San Antonio last June. In his last fight,
at Atlantic City in December, De La Hoya dropped Wilfredo Rivera,
but it was a cut over the eye that caused the fight to be stopped
in the eighth round.
The fight with Charpentier would seem to be an ideal opportunity
for De La Hoya to rev up the knockout-puncher reputation that
has suffered a bit lately. If Charpentier was life-and-death in
European title fights with Gary Jacobs and capable but
unexceptional Valery Kayumba (the latter a majority win in which
Charpentier suffered a cut over the eye), how can he hope to hold
off De La Hoya?
This could be over very quickly indeed, especially if Charpentier
gets cut. But the crowd probably will not mind because, to many,
when De La Hoya is in the ring the fight itself takes second place
to the fighter. |
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