BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : De La Hoya: Still Good as Gold or Showing True Colors?

He is free of his contractual obligations, but not unscathed. He is poorer, but has such a promising financial future that it hardly matters.

He does not turn 21 until next month and has never won or even fought for a world title, but corporate executives and boxing’s most powerful men continue to contort and twist in reaction to his every decision.

Oscar De La Hoya, where exactly do you go from here?

The boxing career will move forward, of course, but how far will he advance?

His story is without a likely ending yet, with millions of dollars and a reputation in limbo. This is about boxing and greed, fathers and sons, loyalty and power.

On the surface, despite all the recent seismic activity he created by leaving his co-managers, De La Hoya’s short-term future has not changed drastically.

With those former co-managers receiving a cash settlement to terminate their contract, De La Hoya will be free to venture up to Big Bear soon to train for his fight on March 5 against Jimmy Bredahl, the World Boxing Organization junior-lightweight champion, to mark the reopening of the Olympic Auditorium.

He will sign a $7.5-million contract with HBO that instantly makes him one of the richest fighters in the world. He will seek and certainly find lucrative endorsement and movie deals to feed his dreams of becoming a crossover superstar.

But the ugly battle to free himself from the management contract he signed more than a year ago with Bob Mittleman and Steve Nelson has left deeper marks, made him vulnerable to deeper wounds.

And according to some boxing observers, as De La Hoya prepares to enter his prime earning years, it hints at deeper flaws in the fighter himself.

“The change in management by itself doesn’t lead to problems, but it’s indicative of what I believe is a flaw in someone’s character,” said Dan Duva, who promotes Evander Holyfield and Pernell Whitaker and remembers all too well when De La Hoya walked away from Duva’s associate, Shelly Finkel, to sign with Mittleman and Nelson.

“The fighters that have really been the most successful, like Marvin Hagler, Michael Spinks, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, Muhammad Ali, they kept the same core group of advisers with them throughout their careers.

“Loyalty shows strong character--because there are always people waving money in your face. It takes a very strong person to not give in to that temptation.

“It takes the same kind of strong will to win tough, grueling fights when you’re hurt, out of gas and need to dig down deep.”

Obviously, if De La Hoya wins the WBO title, then proceeds on course to take a lightweight title and move upward through three or four weight classes, this will be nothing more than a minor moment.

De La Hoya himself says he probably will manage himself, and spin off the management of parts of his career--endorsement deals, matchmaking, movie deals--to a series of business lieutenants. Promoter Bob Arum apparently will continue to have a strong hand in guiding De La Hoya’s fight career.

And local businessman Mike Hernandez, a longtime family friend, has emerged as a quiet, stabilizing force in the De La Hoya camp.

HBO, whose deal with him will place him as a spokesman for the cable network, says it will welcome De La Hoya into the fold anytime he is ready.

“I consider it a sign of level-headedness and maturity that he wants everything in order before he goes ahead with his career,” said Bob Greenway, HBO vice president for sports programming. “Too many fighters tend to careen forward without having everything straightened out. I don’t think anyone would think less of him simply because he wants to resolve some outstanding issues with his management team.

“On the scale of whether this tarnishes his image, this might register 1 on a scale of 100.”

Many observers believe that De La Hoya’s father, Joe, was the key player in the decision to spurn Finkel for Mittleman’s and Nelson’s richer deal. Some who know De La Hoya suggest that the recent action has been the fighter’s way of showing his family that he--not his father--is in charge.

But can someone who has demonstrated such a clear desire for short-term benefits manage himself over the long haul? Mittleman and Nelson said that he needed close supervision, that without it, De La Hoya would get out of shape and lose focus.

They had him fighting about once a month, but he has never made it down to the 130-pound junior-lightweight limit. He will go four months between bouts before his March fight, which must be contested at 130.

“I’m not saying it will be easy, but he can make 130,” said his trainer, Robert Alcazar, who also will apparently have increased say in De La Hoya’s career. “All he needs is the discipline to do it.”

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De La Hoya was the Barcelona golden boy when he came back with the U.S. boxing team’s only gold medal in 1992, but he never really was a naive cherub--though his smile sometimes made him seem to be.

He has a sharp mind, with a fixed idea of where he wants to be in 10 years: He wants to win championships in five or six weight classes, then he wants to retire and become an entertainment star.

When he became convinced--with help from his new advisers--that Mittleman and Nelson were not delivering on their grand promises, he decided to leave them.

But as he did with Finkel, he never told them face to face that he was leaving and never sat down for serious discussions to try to fix the problems.

He simply left. And, Nelson said, what makes anyone think he won’t leave anybody else when he feels like it?

“When we first signed him, we were told that his image was a little bit hurt because of what happened between him and Shelly,” Nelson said. “That one could be explained away.

“It’s happened twice now, so you start to think it can happen over and over again. We did a real good job for the kid, and we gave our all for him. I don’t know if anybody else can give as much time and commitment as we did.

“If he’s looking for more and better, I don’t know if he’s going to find it.”

And there’s the one question that leaves some people around De La Hoya with chills: Isn’t it natural that his search for more and more money and a bigger profile might lead him to Don King?

De La Hoya has laughingly called King “a crook,” and King says he received calls from people purporting to represent De La Hoya, but has “never, never ever,” discussed signing De La Hoya with anybody in the fighter’s camp.

That doesn’t mean he won’t. De La Hoya’s promotional contract with Arum runs out in two years. Perhaps the richest potential non-heavyweight fight in the next two or three years would be a De La Hoya-Julio Cesar Chavez matchup. King represents Chavez.

“I would love to have De La Hoya,” King said. “If we can get him free and clear, man, I could make millions for him. Everybody De La Hoya can fight to make the big money is with me.

“There’s an open invitation to him, as long as he can remove any type of legalities. Nothing would please me more than bringing him to the top level he belongs.”

Oscar De La Hoya, is that where you go from here?

Boxing Notes

The renovation of the Olympic Auditorium has been moved into high gear. With the official reopening set for March 5, the building will be a whirlwind of activity for the next few months. “Back when my father bought the place, there were scores of articles saying that we were going to knock it down and make it a parking lot,” said Steve Needleman, who has taken over the building along with his brothers. “Well, take a look, this is not a parking lot.” The new seats are scheduled to be installed in mid-January, the new dressing rooms are already being built in what used to be the ticket offices and a building on the same lot is being readied to become a combination office building-community gymnasium. Planners recently discovered that they could fit 500 more floor seats than originally thought, boosting the fight capacity to 7,500.

The recent actions of Rock Newman, manager of Riddick Bowe, to land a third Bowe-Evander Holyfield heavyweight title fight seem to have done nothing more than harden Holyfield’s desire to fight anybody but Bowe. Newman, suggesting that Holyfield promoter Dan Duva is not looking out for his best interests, tried to begin negotiations with Hammer, Holyfield’s adviser, for a third bout, offering a guaranteed purse of $20 million. But Holyfield’s reaction has been to draw closer to Duva and downplay Hammer’s role in his career. Michael Moorer, the No. 1 contender who also is a Duva fighter, now appears to be Holyfield’s next opponent.