Golden Boy's image tarnished

The shine began to come off the Golden Boy around the eighth round last Saturday night, and by the time the final bell sounded his carefully cultivated image had been thoroughly tarnished.

"Oscar's shining star has been dimmed," crowed Don King, whose armed truce with co-promoter (and arch-rival) Bob Arum ended with the final bell. "Oh, I'm so happy. What a day!"

The hotly anticipated meeting of undefeated welterweight champions was supposed to be Oscar De La Hoya's crowning moment. In Felix Trinidad, his promoters were saying, he was finally meeting an adversary worthy of his gifts. Even De La Hoya modestly surmised that a victory over the International Boxing Federation title-holder would "put me where I belong, among the all-time greats of the sport."

In the gym at his Puerto Rican training camp where he prepared for what promoter Bob Arum had modestly christened the "Fight of the Millennium," Trinidad did daily battle with a heavy bag from whose moorings dangled a rubber chicken. Lest a visitor miss the point, a member of the Trinidad camp had hung a sign on the offending fowl, labelling it "POLLO De La Hoya," thus immortalising the sobriquet - Chicken De La Hoya - New York boxing scribe Michael (Wolf Man) Katz had bestowed on De La Hoya several years ago.

The incessant whining that commenced the moment Saturday night's majority decision was announced has come mostly from Arum, and not from the fighter himself. Trinidad rallied down the stretch to pull out the decision on two cards. A third judge, Glenn Hamada, scored the bout even at 114-114, as did this corner. (De La Hoya might not, as he contends, have lost this fight, but he certainly didn't WIN it.) A draw, to be sure, would have been fairer, but it might have been even more controversial.

"He is a great fighter," conceded De La Hoya. "He is a very strong fighter. I'm hurt inside emotionally, but honestly in my heart I thought I won. I really believed I was in control of the fight."

De La Hoya might have believed he was ahead on points as he turned tail and ran, "fighting," if that is the word, the last several rounds in abject retreat, but he must have heard the boos as they cascaded down from the cheap seats. The howls of displeasure weren't coming from Trinidad's fans, but from the same men and women who had cheered and squealed at his entrance into the ring.

Perhaps the spectators could sense what De La Hoya evidently could not - that he was in the process of losing the biggest fight of his life. "I thought I had it in the bag. I swear, I really did," De La Hoya said. "Now I know how Lennox Lewis feels."

The conventional wisdom had it that De La Hoya was unlikely to lose a decision in Las Vegas, where over half of his 31 professional wins had taken place. Even Trinidad and King had said as much, that "for Oscar, this is a home game."

"There was a lot of talk that Oscar couldn't lose a decision in Las Vegas, and I think the judges went in with that mindset," supposed Arum. "Some of those scores were preposterous."

"You don't have to resort to chicanery and trickeration like impugning the integrity of others," King chastised his now former partner.

"The object of boxing is to hit the other guy and not let him hit you," said veteran trainer Gil Clancy, who worked the De La Hoya corner. "We had him so far ahead that there was no way he could lose in the final rounds unless he got knocked out." Post-fight statistics revealed De La Hoya connecting on 263 punches to 166 for Trinidad, but most of the differential came in the relatively harmless jabs he landed early in the bout.

Whether De La Hoya believed, as he claimed, he was protecting an insurmountable lead or whether he simply let his caution get the better of him, he all but abandoned any semblance of resistance as he turned tail and ran. The tactical blunder cost him his World Boxing Council championship, which Trinidad added to the IBF version he already held, and he undoubtedly forfeited any claim he might have had to the mythical world's pound-for-pound title as well.

Still, the most anticipated welterweight bout in nearly two decades saw De La Hoya earn $21.5 million, Trinidad $10.5 million, by far his largest career payday. With a million homes, at $50 each, tuned into the pay-per-view telecast , Trinidad-De La Hoya I was the largest-grossing non-heavyweight fight in boxing history. While it was a financial success, the "Fight of the Millennium" was hardly an artistic masterpiece.

Almost from the moment the judges' cards were turned in, Arum and Trinidad's promoter King engaged in a noisy squabble so unseemly that one who didn't know better might have ascribed to bad manners, rather than for what it plainly represented - the opening salvos for what promises to be a long and protracted negotiation over the inevitable rematch.

Trinidad said immediately after the fight that he would have no problem with a return bout, but De La Hoya did not seem as intrigued by the notion. King, listed as co-promoter but a decidedly junior partner in Saturday night's venture, proclaimed that he would happily preside over Trinidad De La Hoya II.

"I would have a rematch tomorrow under the same terms and conditions that we fought under today," thundered King."We do not have to negotiate no contract. Just put my name where (Arum's) was and his name where mine was, and it's on."

Even before King and his party entered the post-fight interview room, Arum was approached by an acquaintance inquiring about the possibility.

"Nah," thundered Arum, unaware that he was standing beside a live microphone. "We're not gonna work with those assholes again."

"Oh, there will be a rematch," HBO vice president Lou DiBella, whose TVKO pay-per-view operation had bankrolled this one, said with a chuckle as he watched Arum and King have at one another from across the room. "That's what they're negotiating about right now, but if King is demanding Oscar De La Hoya money for the next one, he isn't being realistic."

King, the self-styled World's Greatest Promoter is already threatening to match Trinidad in a unification bout against James Page, the WBA welterweight claimant who is also under contract to King. That might not sit well with Arum, but De La Hoya sounds as if it would be just fine with him. He doesn't seem any more eager to fight Trinidad again now than he was to fight him along about the 10th round Saturday night.

"I'm just very disappointed with boxing," sighed Oscar De La Hoya, the Golden Boy no more.