Columnist Dean Juipe: Oscar wins and roguish Tyson denied

AS PREDICTIONS go, these look easy.

Oscar De La Hoya wins.

Mike Tyson does not.

De La Hoya is fighting Julio Cesar Chavez tonight at the Thomas & Mack Center and this has the look of a quick but painful evening for the six-time former world champion. He could be out of there in a hurry.

Conversely, Tyson's hearing Saturday in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission has two or three hours written all over it -- and the outcome seems just as apparent. Once a sure thing to be relicensed by the NSAC, the self-destructive Tyson has made it all but impossible for the commission to OK him after the stunts he has pulled in the last month.

It's a big weekend for boxing and boxing-related issues, what with Las Vegas booked with De La Hoya and Tyson and Atlanta hosting heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield's pitifully easy title defense against Vaughn Bean. No way Holyfield loses.

De La Hoya is almost as much of a sure thing.

He's pumped and he wants to make Chavez pay for his excuse-riddled conduct following their first fight, in 1996, when Chavez refused to accept a fourth-round TKO loss on the grounds he came into the fight susceptible to a facial cut after a young son accidentally bopped him. Chavez is a whiner and it has aggravated De La Hoya.

The younger man holds all the advantages. De La Hoya, 11 years Chavez's junior, is stronger and probably more fit. He wants to punish his rival and while Chavez is a warrior who certainly won't lie down or step aside, he's outgunned in this one.

To be more specific on the prediction, De La Hoya wins by either knockout or because Chavez is bleeding too badly to continue. Chavez has become a notorious bleeder in his old age and, even if he stays on his feet, chances are he'll be bleeding badly within three or four rounds.

The other probable loser, Tyson, will also suffer a mortal wound of sorts when the NSAC gets done with him. He's looking to regain his boxing license and has to have the commission's approval to get it, but it isn't apt to be forthcoming -- at least for a while.

Had Tyson applied for a license on the anniversary date of his revocation and on the first day he was eligible for relicensing -- July 9 -- he would have been approved. But since that time the former heavyweight champ has alienated the NSAC by misguidedly taking his appeal to New Jersey; sworn in front of the New Jersey Athletic Control Board; and, the topper, been involved in a road-rage-like dispute in Maryland in which he allegedly kicked one man and punched another after a minor traffic accident.

The NSAC is not going to license him Saturday. It will either outright deny him a license and tell him to come back in a year; or it will delay a decision until after Tyson's Oct. 2 court date in Maryland; or it will request he continue seeing a therapist -- as he has been in recent days -- and perhaps agree to address the situation again in three or six months.

In July, the NSAC had every reason to license Tyson -- not the least of which was the threat of litigation against the state if it did not. But he has been steadily unraveling since, and the votes for approval he once would have received will now be cast against him.

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