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Felix, Oscar an odd couple
You have to see this up close to fully understand, how he walks into a room and people stop, how the teenaged girls follow him making shrieking sounds, how he has become an attraction just for being an attraction.
"It's just like Ali in the '60s,'' said Bob Arum, one of the promoters of the welterweight championship fight tomorrow night between De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad. "Oscar has become a symbol for the emergence of his people. In two or three years there will be more Hispanic-Americans living in this country than African-Americans. By the year 2040, 25% of people living in this country will be of Hispanic heritage.
"The future is theirs and Oscar symbolizes all their dreams.''
Somehow, the athletic attraction that is Oscar De La Hoya -- the fighter who geographically and politically transcends his game -- has managed to slip by quietly and miss our Canadian sensibilities. We don't talk much about him, care much about him, debate this fight tomorrow with any sense of passion, even though it has everything Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns had 18 years ago, everything but our rabid endorsement.
Mention that Oscar and Felix are fighting tomorrow to most Canadians and they will figure a rerun of The Odd Couple is being shown on television. But this is very real, the kind of fight that doesn't get staged very often anymore, two fighters with genuine stories and genuine skill, and one certain celebrity: At least, in his own country, and in Mexico and South America.
Oscar De La Hoya, 26, grew up in the barrio of East Los Angeles, fought for the United States at the Olympics, won a gold medal, turned professional, got rich, got famous beating almost nobody, and before him now is this force named Felix Trinidad, 26.
Trinidad, who easily could win this fight, is the other guy in the ring. If De La Hoya hardly registers with the Canadian heartbeat, then Trinidad doesn't register at all. Not without a Tobago.
He is a quiet fighter of tremendous skill. The native of Puerto Rico is unbeaten, like De La Hoya, with a resume of more power and a chilling solitude that makes him the steely eyed anti-Oscar.
This fight will do more than $80 million in business on one night, twice what the Maple Leafs sell over an entire season but almost none of it because of Trinidad. The attraction is De La Hoya. He understands that and when asked recently about fighting another welterweight he doesn't care for, De La Hoya the business man answered: "He's not going to get rich off my name.''
With De La Hoya, there is a magic that cannot completely be explained. It doesn't seem to matter where he goes or who he fights, there will be a crowd and there will be an event and there will be some kind of story to tell. In places like El Paso, Tex., where he fought earlier this year, it was announced De La Hoya would be training in public at a minor-league baseball park. That day, 10,000 people showed up in the rain to watch him. When his workout was moved indoors to an apparent private facility, word leaked out and 1,000 people showed up at the gym.
This is how his faithful Hispanic following reacts to him. He is Ricky Martin, but his dancing and his inside-outside is done in a boxing ring. One writer dubbed him "the American dream with a Latino beat.''
It is that kind of magnetism which has made him not simply a fighter but a personality, a celebrity. The demographics of the De La Hoya fan has altered the demographics that have defined boxing. Not only are more Hispanics watching than ever before, but more women under the age of 30 are watching. Recently, a female boxer undressed for Playboy and was asked why she did it. She answered that she wanted the world to know that Oscar De La Hoya wasn't the only pretty boxer around.
But tomorrow, looks and personality won't matter once the bell rings. Then it becomes about boxing.
"Trinidad has one style,'' De La Hoya said. "And that's coming forward, putting pressure on you. But I don't think he's a solid, physical person. If I land the right punch, he'll buckle and go down. And he will stay down.''
For his part, Trinidad is saying little, letting the star be the star. This is the De La Hoya show to win or lose. There would be no payday without him.
Steve Simmons' column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. He can be reached via e-mail at ssimmons@sunpub.com
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