Columnist Dean Juipe: Las Vegan Phillips looks like next Trinidad foe

Dean Juipe's boxing notebook appears Thursday. His sports column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 259-4084 or [email protected]

It will be Vince Phillips, not Oscar De La Hoya, fighting Felix Trinidad this fall if all goes according to current plans.

While a De La Hoya vs. Trinidad fight once seemed a foregone conclusion for 1999, today it's highly unlikely. The two 147-pound champions are about to go their separate ways, their proposed fight victimized by stymied negotiations between rival promoters Bob Arum and Don King.

If Trinidad gets past Pernell Whitaker in a tough bout scheduled for Feb. 20 in New York, he may take on a lesser opponent and then meet Phillips in September. Phillips, of Las Vegas, is the IBF 140-pound champion and he would move up to 147 to face Trinidad.

For what it's worth, Arum would like to see Whitaker upset Trinidad.

"If Whitaker wins that fight as I'm hoping he will, there's a good possibility we'd put Whitaker back in a rematch with Oscar," Arum said Wednesday. "(Whitaker's promoter) Dino Duva is easier to work with."

De La Hoya gained a decision win over Whitaker April 12, 1997, in Las Vegas. Whitaker -- and the East Coast press -- felt he won the fight and vigorously protested the judges' scoring.

But a rematch with Whitaker wasn't on De La Hoya's plate until Arum realized he couldn't work out a Trinidad fight with King.

"Oscar would like to fight Trinidad, but I can't make Trinidad take the fight," Arum said. "Now that Trinidad is back with King, I'd say chances are remote for a fight with De La Hoya.

"The trouble is, King wants to make more money on that fight than Trinidad.

"So be it. I talked with King about it and got nowhere, so I'm not going to pursue it any longer. Trinidad can't draw flies on his own and I'm not going to go begging."

This may seem like a jigsaw puzzle of possibilities, yet it's fairly simple: If Trinidad defeats Whitaker, he's committed to fighting Phillips; and if De La Hoya defeats Ike Quartey Feb. 13 in Las Vegas, he'll face either Frankie Randall or Oba Carr in May at the new Mandalay Bay arena, followed by either Whitaker or WBC 154-pound champ Keith Mullings in the fall.

While boxing fans -- as well as De La Hoya himself -- may be disappointed by Trinidad dropping from De La Hoya's tentative schedule, Phillips and his manager, Bill Miller, are not.

"We have a new deal with Don King," Miller said. "Vince is going to fight his mandatory with Terron Millett on the Trinidad-Whitaker undercard, then maybe have another fight on a Trinidad undercard in the summer, and then we were promised a fight with Trinidad in September.

"I was committed to getting Vince into a marquee fight and Trinidad is definitely it."

Miller said he had some leverage in negotiating a fight for Phillips with Trinidad.

"I told Don and Carl (King) that they had to appease me or I'd keep Vince with Bob Arum," Miller said. "They wanted to sign Vince, but I said 'Before that happens you have to guarantee us Trinidad.' We had some heated words about it but when they came back to see me, they agreed.

"That's a fight that will bring Vince some money. There's no money in these other fights for him."

A fight with Millett is one that won't have Phillips' cash register ringing, but it's a mandatory defense that's overdue and one Phillips had to take or be stripped of his title.

Those fans with a sharp eye may have noticed that there was a fight on last Saturday's Mike Tyson vs. Frans Botha undercard at the MGM that indirectly affected Phillips. In a scheduled 12-round bout, Zab Judah defeated Wilfredo Negron by fourth-round knockout in a fight billed as the "IBF junior welterweight interim championship."

Yet Phillips is the IBF junior welterweight champion, right?

A call to IBF president Robert Lee in East Orange, N.J., clarified that mystery.

"They paid us a fee to call Judah's fight the interim championship," Lee said. "Judah wanted to defend his USBA title and that would have been fine, but then the promoter (Dan Goossen) called me and said they already had it in their advertising that Judah's bout would be for the interim IBF championship.

"Looking at the whole situation and the fact Phillips hadn't yet signed to fight Millett at the time, I said 'Fine, go ahead and say Judah's fight is for the interim title.' "

Judah, 19-0, got little out of Goossen's ploy but he will move up to mandatory challenger's status after Phillips' fight with Millett.

And Phillips, 39-3 and training in Indio, Calif., shouldn't have much trouble with Millett.

"I feel he'll win handily," Miller said.

* QUICK HITS: WBC junior lightweight champ Floyd Mayweather of Las Vegas has accepted a Feb. 17 fight in his native Grand Rapids, Mich., with Carlos Rios of Argentina providing the opposition. Mayweather, training in Palm Springs, hopes to fill the 12,000-seat arena for a fight to be televised by TNT. ... German heavyweight Axel Schulz took in last Saturday's Mike Tyson fight at the MGM and said he wasn't impressed. "He's not his old self," said Schulz, who is being mentioned as a possible opponent for Tyson April 24. "I think my chances of beating him increased after a fight like this. My tactics would be similar to Botha's but I'd be better defensively." ... The UNLV club boxing team -- which was organized last fall -- is moving into its own facility on campus. It's located behind Wilson Stadium's right-field fence and will be formally opened Tuesday at noon with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. ... A pair of Las Vegans, Lou Tabat and Mitch Halpern, will work Monday's WBA lightweight title fight in Versailles, F

rance, between Jean-Baptiste Mendy and Alberto Sicurella. Tabat will be one of the three judges and Halpern will referee the bout. ... Promoter Bob Arum has been selected for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, with ceremonies set for June 13 in Canastota, N.Y. "I'm still not happy about it," Arum said, believing anyone active in the sport shouldn't be eligible. ... The New Frontier has landed a Feb. 6 card that will be televised by Fox. Headlining will be heavyweight Phil Jackson, 43-6, and Monte Barrett, 19-0. ... WBA middleweight champ William Joppy suffered a neck injury in a car accident Monday and has withdrawn from his Feb. 6 fight in Washington with Darren Obah.

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