De La Hoya Is Hoping to Turn a Corner

NEW YORK —  Oscar De La Hoya will step into the ring at Madison Square Garden tonight to fight little-known Derrell Coley in a 12-round welterweight bout.

Unless Coley, who has yet to show the ability to withstand a solid punch, is able to rise to a new level, this doesn’t figure to be a tough fight for De La Hoya.

Certainly not as tough as the bigger battle he continues to wage in his corner, fighting for his heart and soul.

That battle has been going on since De La Hoya won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics.

Even as his bandwagon was filling up, the struggle for the reins began. Everybody, it seemed, knew the best road to the top of the professional boxing world for De La Hoya. Everybody wanted a piece of the sport’s newest Golden Boy. Everybody had a fight plan. Everybody offered a supposedly unbeatable style.

It was all so confusing to a 20-year-old whose world previously had ended at the borders of East Los Angeles.

But even today, living in a world with no borders, De La Hoya seems no less confused.

He has stuck with those who were there at the beginning--his father, Joel, his brother, Joel Jr., and his trainer, Robert Alcazar. After some early wheeling and dealing, De La Hoya settled on promoter Bob Arum. He brought in business manager Mike Hernandez to straighten his tangled financial affairs. He hired cut man Chuck Bodak.

In the ring, De La Hoya was untouchable, piling up victories over the usual assortment of has-beens and never-will-be’s that most promising young fighters trample on the way up.

But there always was uncertainty about his corner, a question whether the inexperienced Alcazar was really the man to guide De La Hoya to glory.

Boxer or puncher? The debate raged in the De La Hoya camp over which was his best style.

A father-figure trainer, Jesus Rivero, was brought in to work with De La Hoya. He taught the young fighter about defense--and about life. De La Hoya said he enjoyed learning from the man he lovingly called “the professor.”

Then, suddenly, Rivero was gone. Had Alcazar dismissed him out of jealously? That was the rumor, although the official party line was that De La Hoya had become too defensive a fighter.

Veteran trainer Emanuel Steward was brought in to add offense to the arsenal. That he did, in brilliant fashion, but he too was soon gone. Why? Again, no one was saying, but the theory was that Steward had crossed Arum by taking De La Hoya to a fight staged by rival promoter Don King and had crossed De La Hoya’s father by exerting too much influence on his son.

So a compromise was reached. Alcazar would remain the head trainer but veteran Gil Clancy would be brought in to look over Alcazar’s shoulder.

De La Hoya still complained about a lack of control over his affairs, so he fired Hernandez.

That was supposed to bring peace and quiet to his inner circle.

Hardly.

Last September, controversy flared anew when De La Hoya, well ahead on points in his blockbuster bout with Felix Trinidad, inexplicably quit fighting for the last three rounds, choosing to stay away and dance to victory. Instead, he danced to disaster, losing a close decision that dropped his record to 31-1 with 25 knockouts.

Clancy and De La Hoya have since severed ties. De La Hoya said it was the decision of his brain trust.

Clancy was offered $25,000 to work tonight’s fight. But, as one source close to De La Hoya put it, “It was sort of like inviting someone to a dinner party at the last minute, verbally instead of by invitation, because you don’t really want them there.”

So, Clancy apparently became the latest in a long line of scapegoats for the bumps in De La Hoya’s road.

“Gil had nothing to do with what happened,” insisted De La Hoya of the Trinidad fight. “The reason he is not here is not because I lost. There was just too much confusion in my corner. There are too many people who want to put their two cents in on what I should do.”

Who are those people? Hernandez?

“That was one of the problems,” De La Hoya said.

Who else? De La Hoya’s father? His brother? Bodak? Arum? De La Hoya wouldn’t say, but Clancy is the only one gone.

“Ever since Oscar won the gold medal, people came around with their own agenda,” Alcazar said. “Oscar forgot who he was.”

Alcazar does not deny that he became too caught up in De La Hoya’s dancing style.

“Our brains were washed by all the people around us,” he said.

Who are these people?

Again, no names mentioned.

Clancy says he didn’t tell De La Hoya to stay away from Trinidad. Alcazar?

“Oscar was so far ahead, I told him to just do enough in those last three rounds,” his trainer said. “What if I had told him to go out there and try for the knockout and he had gotten knocked out? You and I would not be having this conversation because I would not be here.”

De La Hoya insists all the indecision is behind him, which he has said many times before. He said he is going back to being the De La Hoya who defeated Ike Quartey in a free-swinging final round.

“That’s me,” he said. “That’s the model for me. I have had too many people involved, but nobody is going to tell me to box. I am going for the knockout against Coley.”

Coley (34-1-2, 24 knockouts), whose only chance appears to be a lucky punch, welcomes that news.

“He doesn’t mind getting hit,” Coley said. “And I don’t mind hitting him.”

Said De La Hoya of his new mind-set, “I have given too much respect to my opponents in the past. They have to give me respect.”

Speaking of respect, De La Hoya acknowledged he has yet to call Clancy to say goodbye. Negotiations with the New York resident were handled by Arum.

“Now that I am in New York, I plan on giving him a call,” De La Hoya said.

Couldn’t the Golden Boy afford the cost of a long-distance call?

If he really plans to take control of his life away from all those shadowy figures in the background, hiring and firing those who work for him might be a good place to start.

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WEIGHTY MATTERS: Derrell Coley and his handlers claim Oscar De La Hoya weighed in one pound over the 147-pound limit for their fight. Page 7

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

TONIGHT’S FIGHT

OSCAR DE LA HOYA vs. DERRELL COLEY

TONIGHT

Madison Square Garden, New York

HBO

Telecast begins

at 6

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FIGHTER FACTS

DE LA HOYA

Record: 31-1

Knockouts: 25

Age: 27

Home: Los Angeles

COLEY

Record: 34-1-2

Knockouts: 24

Age: 29

Home: Gary, Ind.

Tale of the Tape

Tale of the tape for tonight’s 12-round IBA welterweight championship fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Derrell Coley at Madison Square Garden in New York. Television coverage on HBO begins at 6:

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Coley De La Hoya 29 Age 27 147 Weight 147 5-11 Height 5-11 75 Reach 72 40 Chest (normal) 39 42 Chest (expand) 42 1/4 13 1/2 Biceps 13 3/4 11 1/2 Forearm 12 31 Waist 31 3/4 22 Thigh 21 15 Calf 13 1/2 16 1/4 Neck 15 1/2 6 1/2 Wrist 7 12 1/2 Fist 9

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