Lame Excuses Tarnish Oscar
New York Post: Thursday, March 22, 2001
LAS VEGAS - Memo to Oscar De La Hoya: If you don't like this column, don't blame me. Blame my editor.
Hey, I'm just trying to Be Like Oscar here, and why not?
All over the MGM Grand Hotel, where De La Hoya will return to the ring against Arturo Gatti Saturday night, there are these huge posters of Oscar in one of those arms-akimbo, bullfighter-type poses, his face exuding scorn and machismo, over the words: "A Real Hero Returns."
Now, who wouldn't want to emulate someone like that?
Therefore, I have decided to live my life - and write my columns - the way Oscar de la Hoya would.
Minus responsibility, or accountability, or honesty, or even shame.
After all, like Oscar, I transcend all of those things.
The same way Oscar is Bigger Than Boxing and Bigger Than Music and Bigger, even, than All of Mexico, I, too, am Bigger Than Newspapers.
So naturally, when I do something wrong, it is not my fault.
Over his last three fights, a thick coating of tarnish has formed on the erstwhile Golden Boy, courtesy of losses to Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley sandwiched around a win over Derrell Coley that was perhaps one punch from yet another defeat.
And last week, on a national conference call, here is what Hero De La Hoya had to say about his recent struggles: "Hey, don't blame me. Blame all the trainers that I've had. I won a lot of titles on natural ability. It's about time someone teaches me. If someone is not teaching me, than how am I supposed to progress?"
So, now he tells us. After winning an Olympic gold medal, 32 professional fights, two world titles and something like $150 million in the bank, Oscar De La Hoya really doesn't know how to fight.
But it's not his fault.
Blame it on Robert Alcazar and Emanuel Steward and Jesus Rivero and Gil Clancy and even, maybe especially, on his father, Joel De La Hoya.
All of them have taken a crack at trying to teach the kid to fight, and clearly, all have failed.
While you're at it, throw in Bob Arum, who tried to promote De La Hoya but flunked miserably at that, and HBO, which forced him to accept millions of dollars that by his own admission, he did not deserve.
And as for Shanna Moakler, that Baywatch babe who changed the locks on his house when he changed his mind about their engagement, that wasn't Oscar's fault, either.
Blame David Hasselhoff for introducing them.
But all that has changed now, thankfully.
Finally, at 28 years old, Oscar De La Hoya is learning the craft that has made him rich and famous.
No, not music, although there is talk that he was robbed at the Grammies, too, the way he was robbed against Trinidad and Mosley.
But it doesn't matter, because Oscar transcends music the way he transcends boxing and the way he transcends handsome and the way he will someday transcend motion pictures and television and celebrity itself.
He will do this under the tutelage of Floyd Mayweather Sr., his latest trainer but the first, according to De La Hoya, who ever knew what the hell he was doing, and Jerry Perenchio, a Hollywood honcho who will teach Arum a thing or two about fight promotion.
"All my other trainers, compared to Mayweather, I wasn't doing nothing before," De La Hoya said yesterday. "Nobody's ever taught me the way he's teaching me. I assure you, he's the real deal."
Of course, De La Hoya was just as high on every one of his previous trainers before their first real fight together.
"Yeah, but he never said the things about them that he's saying about me," Mayweather observed.
Mayweather was asked how it felt knowing that if Oscar looked bad against Gatti, it would undoubtedly be the trainer's fault.
"If he looks bad in this fight," Mayweather corrected, "it's his fault. I can only teach him, I can't fight the fight for him."
"Mayweather's right," De La Hoya agreed. "If I lose this fight, then the problem is me, because I know Mayweather has trained me right. I need to perform. But I assure you, I will perform."
Among Oscar's other "assurances" were that the 12,000-seat Grand Garden would be sold out (so far, only 4,000 tickets have been sold) and that the HBO ratings "will be very high," even though the fight is going up against the NCAA quarterfinals.
Of course, if none of this works out as planned, don't blame Oscar.
Perenchio is calling those shots now, so you know where that leaves him.
At the wrong end of the shooting gallery if anything goes wrong.
And already, nothing seems quite right, about this promotion, or De La Hoya.
Yesterday's sparsely-attended news conference bore a remarkable resemblance to a wake. Gone was the Beatle-mania feel of previous De La Hoya sightings, along with the hordes of squealing young women outside the ballroom trying to sneak a peek at the idol.
"I guess we just had more professional people running the conference," De La Hoya said.
Plus, it was a school day.
And De La Hoya's newest grand plan for himself seemed oddly redundant.
"We're trying to build my name," he said, as if that hadn't already been done by the time he got back from Barcelona with his gold medal nine years ago.
"It's already a household name, I know, but we're trying to make it to be known all over the world."
What De La Hoya really meant was re-build his name, and his career and his appeal, all of which took a tumble with his performances against Mosley and Trinidad.
"I feel the fan support I have is very loyal," De La Hoya said. "I don't think I've lost any fans at all."
Then, he admitted, "I need to look spectacular, I know that. I have to be devastating. I have to demonstrate to all the boxing people out there that I'm not done. That's part of the pressure I'm under Saturday night."
What pressure?
If anything goes wrong Saturday night, De La Hoya can handle it the way he always has.
He can blame somebody. Anybody.
Anybody not named Oscar De La Hoya, that is. |
