BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Indications Are De La Hoya Joining Nelson

There were indications late Saturday that East Los Angeles boxer Oscar De La Hoya has signed a pro contract worth more than $1 million with New York mortgage banker/boxing manager Steve Nelson.

It had been assumed until recently that another New York boxing figure, Shelly Finkel, would manage the 19-year-old De La Hoya’s pro career.

Finkel said he had spent about $100,000 since 1990 sponsoring De La Hoya’s amateur career, including buying him a sports car and paying for travel expenses for his family for De La Hoya’s boxing trips.

Finkel became angry when told by phone Saturday night of the report that De La Hoya had signed with Nelson.

“If it’s true, then I’m terribly disappointed I didn’t hear this from Oscar or his father,” he said.

“I don’t wish Oscar ill-will, I wish him well. But I also expect to be treated like a gentleman, just as I have treated Oscar and his family. Whenever Oscar and his father needed me in the last two years, I was there for them.”

Finkel reportedly offered De La Hoya a $250,000 signing bonus, but Nelson and Middleman were said to be offering as much as $850,000 to $1 million.

De La Hoya, the only American boxer to win a gold medal at the Olympic tournament, would not confirm late Saturday that he had signed a contract, saying only: “We’ll have a press conference in about 10 days and we’ll tell everyone who we signed with. It will be a surprise.”

Rochester, N.Y., promoter Jim Cassidy, an associate of Nelson’s, also said late Saturday that Nelson had signed De La Hoya.

Nelson is a onetime co-manager of James (Bonecrusher) Smith, who once owned a piece of the world heavyweight championship. Nelson said that De La Hoya, a Garfield High graduate, first caught his eye last spring at the World Championships Challenge in Tampa, Fla.

Nelson’s partner during the De La Hoya negotiations, he said, has been New York boxing matchmaker Robert Middleman.

Nelson said that the deal was worth more than $1 million and involved cash, a new house and cars. Also in the works, he said, is a made-for-television film about De La Hoya’s life.

He said De La Hoya’s first pro fight would be a six-rounder at the Forum, but that negotiations are under way with other boxing promoters, too.

“I was at the Forum with Oscar a couple of weeks ago, and when he was introduced to a very small crowd, he had a standing ovation,” Nelson said. “I was struck by that. I think Oscar can sell out the Forum. And Oscar’s purse for his pro debut will be the largest ever paid to any boxer in his first pro fight.”

Nelson said that Robert Alcazar of El Monte would continue to train De La Hoya.

Joe Sayatovich, from underneath his ever-present cowboy hat, watched his world champion junior-middleweight, Terry Norris, finish nine fast-paced rounds of sparring at his hot gym in the high desert mountains of eastern San Diego County.

Then Sayatovich said his two biggest problems these days in managing Norris are:

--Finding sparring partners.

--Keeping sparring partners.

“It’s got to the point where we’re paying these guys $500-$700 a week, plus room and board, but we’re now promising them a bonus of $1,500-$3,000 if they stay for the duration of training camp,” Sayatovich said.

Norris, 32-3, will defend his championship Sept. 26 against Simon Brown, 36-2, at Caesars Palace.

It will be Norris’ seventh defense, and his first since his victory last May of Meldrick Taylor. And it will be his second consecutive $1-million-plus payday, which is somewhat better than what sparring partners get these days.

Leroy Owens, a 170-pounder from Las Vegas, had finished going two rounds with Norris. He leaned over the ring’s top rope, exhausted.

He looked over at Norris, who was preparing for the next two-round sparring partner, Rolan Williams.

“Man, look at him,” Owens said. “He ain’t even breathing hard.”

Norris, in superb condition, sparred with four fresh boxers and steadily wear them down.

“He’s working great,” said Williams, exhausted after going three rounds. “He’s very strong, very sharp. He goes to the head first, then the body. Only the great fighters do that.

“And he comes in on you with his hands high, at his head. Then the first punch you sometimes don’t see. It’s that short left uppercut.”

Williams, 23-9, also weighs 170 pounds.

“There isn’t anyone around at Terry’s weight (152-154 pounds) who can stay with him,” Sayatovich said.

“We had a guy in here last week from the Kronk Gym in Detroit, sort of a cocky kid. When he met Terry, I could tell he was thinking: ‘This little guy is Terry Norris? Hey, I can fight him.’

“He was gone after two days. They can’t take the whacking. So we only bring in 165-, 170-pound guys.”

Norris, who rarely has much to say about anything, doesn’t have much to say about his opponent, either, although he’s been watching video of Brown’s fights.

Brown, a Jamaican fighting out of Maryland, was 9-1 in world welterweight championship fights, having recently lost his title to Buddy McGirt.

Norris shrugged when asked about him.

“He’s easy to hit,” he said. “He holds his hands far apart. So I’ll go down the middle on him. He’s probably easier to hit than Taylor was. At least, Meldrick moved around a little bit.

“Brown is a tough, determined guy, though, and he takes a good shot.”

One by one, Norris’ battered sparring partners left the second-floor gym on Sayatovich’s cattle and horse ranch, 50 miles east of San Diego.

But even when the last man left, Norris remained.

He hit trainer Abel Sanchez’s sparring mitts for 20 minutes, then did 20 minutes of sit-ups. Then he finished off with 15 minutes of fast-paced rope jumping.

In the quiet of the afternoon, when the sparring partners walked away from the gym, the only sound on the desert was coming from the open upstairs window--the tap-tap-tap of the champion’s jump rope.

What a contrast in class, the promotions of Julio Cesar Chavez-Hector Camacho (Sept. 12) and Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe (Nov. 13).

When we last saw Holyfield and Bowe, they were standing side by side in Homestead, Fla., helping unload supplies from a truck for hurricane victims.

When we last saw Camacho, at a Los Angeles news conference, he was standing on a stage, above about two-dozen Chavez partisans, making vulgar gestures toward them and threatening to take off his clothes.

Boxing Notes

Most ringsiders at last Saturday’s James Toney-Mike McCallum fight in Reno scored the match for Toney, but one who did not was McCallum’s manager, Milt Chawsky, who protested the result--a majority decision for Toney. Two judges saw it 118-110 and 117-110 for Toney and a third called it even. . . . If Toney can manage his weight, which he probably can’t, he will be looking at a big-money fight with Terry Norris in about six months. But 20 minutes after the McCallum fight, as he was eating his way through a sack of cheeseburgers, Toney told reporters that he could no longer make 160 pounds and would move up to super-middleweight. When told of that, Norris’ manager, Joe Sayatovich, said: “Toney’s promoter is Bob Arum. Believe me, Toney will weigh 160 for his next fight.”

The license of Art Serwano, knocked unconscious for the second consecutive time in a bout at Adelanto last weekend, has been withdrawn by the California Athletic Commission. . . . Symptomatic of professional boxing’s need for standardized record-keeping nationwide was the printed matter distributed to media and spectators at a recent Forum boxing show. For an undercard 10-rounder between Raul Contreras of Fresno and Vicente Gonzalez of Bell, the Forum had Contreras with a 13-2 record. But respected Southland boxing statistician Dean Lohuis had a 4-3-1 mark for Contreras. The Forum’s program said parenthetically: “Since we can’t confirm it, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.” There’s a big difference between 13-2 and 4-3-1.

The Forum is hoping for a crowd of 12,000 when Jorge Paez fights Rafael Ruelas on Oct. 19.