Tuesday, May 6, 2003 | 9:57 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
It may have escaped the majority's attention, yet the symptoms were evident to those with a keen eye or a financial interest.
Oscar De La Hoya was huffing and puffing, tired and fatigued as he labored to finish off Yory Boy Campas in their fight Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.
It was a sign of one of two things: He's getting old, or he didn't take the fight seriously in spite of his assurances to the contrary.
"I agree," promoter Bob Arum said Monday. "I don't think he had the greatest training camp. I think he had a very, very uninspired camp and he wasn't in the shape I would want him to be."
De La Hoya won the fight when everyone from Campas' cornermen to referee Vic Drakulich agreed that it deserved to be called 2:24 into the seventh round. The 11,000 spectators left the arena happy and content, the Golden Boy having had a good workout and a Sept. 13 rematch with Shane Mosley next on his agenda.
He has been medically cleared, as the left hand and left shoulder troubles he complained about following the fight have been deemed insignificant.
De La Hoya vs. Mosley, with one man coming off an unimpressive win and the other not having won a fight in what will be 26 months, is going to draw a big crowd at the MGM Grand Garden yet the participants will be hardpressed to match the ferocity of their earlier clash. Mosley won that fight, in June of 2000 in Los Angeles, by split decision.
"Certainly Oscar needs to be a lot fitter (than he was for Campas)," Arum said. "But this is why I insisted he take a fight in May. Without one, there was a risk we wouldn't get a first-class performance (vs. Mosley)."
De La Hoya is 30 years old and winding down. He wants to beat Mosley, maybe fight middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins next year, and retire.
Mosley, 31, will come into the showdown fight not only on a losing streak but battling rust. He's facing a May 12 deadline for accepting an interim fight before facing De La Hoya, but there's nothing on the table and it's clear he's going to go without.
"Nobody has come up with the money," Arum said of Mosley missing a chance to achieve what De La Hoya gained during his bout with Campas: a paid tune-up. In fact Mosley's most recent fight was no fight at all; his Feb. 8 fight with Raul Marquez was stopped in the third round by unintentional head butts and ruled a no-contest.
While Arum was disappointed in De La Hoya's conditioning for Campas, he marveled at the challenger's fortitude and didn't fault the champion for the lack of a clean knockout.
"Nobody gets Campas out of there," he said. "The punishment he took was unbelievable. It was brutal."
Coincidental or not, Campas' corner let the carnage continue until the fight was past the 1:30 mark of Round 7, which allowed those taking the "over" wager to collect.
"That may be," Arum responded, when asked if he thought Campas' people had some money on the round prop.
If so, they rode their man hard and made him work for a few extra bucks.
Sort of like Arum is going to do with De La Hoya as the fight with Mosley draws nearer.
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