BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Camacho’s Antics Steal Pre-Fight Show

It was a performance as rare as any in boxing, as weirdly entertaining as any world title fight.

Boxing’s luminaries were upstaged here the other day by a smiling, shrieking, silly superstar of years past.

Hector (Macho) Camacho, a three-time champion, shouted at fighters he is not scheduled to fight, clowned for the cameras that weren’t there to film him and generally enlivened a long and meandering news conference.

“I was born to be No. 1,” Camacho said. “I’ve always been No. 1. I’m in a class all by myself. I am the most charismatic, controversial fighter in boxing history.”

And there he was, on the podium with Don King, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard and a cast of dozens, promoting tonight’s three-title fight card at the MGM Grand.

Camacho, 31 and thought to be two or three years past his prime, will fight 21-year-old rising star and fellow Puerto Rican Felix Trinidad, the International Boxing Federation welterweight titleholder.

Camacho did not get the shot because he has relentlessly pursued the chance and worked until he deserved it. He got it because he was and remains, unmistakably, a character.

In his 20s, Camacho was considered one of the most talented fighters in the world, a stylish combination of bravado and skill, speed and timely power. He beat Edwin Rosario, Howard Davis, Ray Mancini, Vinny Pazienza and, after an earlier loss, Greg Haugen.

He also lived faster and harder than anyone around him, and trouble found him when opponents’ fists could not. He had problems with the law--dating to a sixth-month jail stay for car theft before his pro career began--and is in the middle of a six-month term he must serve under house arrest for a November, 1992, altercation with a police officer. He was given permission to travel away from home for this fight.

He has had other problems: In his last great matchup, Camacho had to lose seven pounds on the day of the fight, then lost a 12-round decision to Julio Cesar Chavez on Sept. 12, 1992

“After losing to Chavez, it seemed like I was forced to take second stage,” Camacho said. “It makes it hard for me to go out there and get a good purse. It’s just like I’m only a bag of tea. I learned the value of a title.

“When I came onto the scene, I was like Trinidad. I was 20, 21, I had a title and I was always up there at the top. After the Chavez loss, I can see the difference.”

After the Chavez fight, Camacho went into semi-retirement before emerging with three victories in three fights in 1993.

Is he a changed, more mature Camacho now?

“People say they see a change in me,” Camacho said. “I don’t see what change.”

Changed or not, he will be up against a fighter many say is the hardest young puncher in years.

Camacho remains confident, citing Trinidad’s last fight--an awkward 12th-round knockout of Anthony Stephens Oct. 23--and comparing Trinidad to his past opponents.

“I think he’s the worst of all of them,” Camacho said of Trinidad. “He’s not as good as Pazienza. He’s not better than Chavez. He’s not better than Haugen. He’s not better than a lot of the fighters that I’ve fought.

“He’s a kid who came out of nowhere about eight months ago and knocked out Maurice Blocker, then knocked out (Luis) Garcia in the first round, so everyone was saying he’s this great puncher.”

Camacho says he can still move well enough to avoid Trinidad’s roundhouse shots and has plenty of power to defeat the younger fighter.

“The kid is still green,” Camacho said. “Against Stephens, he was getting hit with straight shots, he got buckled a couple of times. . . . There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m going to win this fight. Because he’s so green. He throws the same stuff, one, two, three, he repeats the right hand. He’s too straight up, he goes for the fakes.

“It’s just a different league. It’s night and day. I’m Camacho, not a beat-up fighter like he’s expecting.”

The winner of this fight is expected to fight Chavez in September at the MGM.

If it is Camacho, it will be a far different fight from the first bout, he says, much like the way Pernell Whitaker frustrated Chavez in their controversial draw last year.

“Whitaker did everything, basically, that I didn’t do in the fight,” Camacho said. “Stick, move, never in front of him, hold him, spin him off, get back on your bike.

“That wasn’t close to my best fight last time. It will be different. Trinidad’s people were counting that I wouldn’t be the same after the Chavez fight, and they are wrong.

“By the time I get to Chavez again, everything will be different.”

*

Genaro Hernandez, the World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion whose career has been slowed by recurring hand problems, will undergo surgery to replace a loose screw in his right hand days after his fight Monday night at the Forum against Jorge (Cocas) Ramirez.

The screw was originally inserted late in 1992, but a specialist recently discovered that the bone was not healing around it, causing Hernandez pain every time he landed a punch to the head.

“What happens is, if I land a good shot to the head, it feels like I hit a wall,” Hernandez said. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to hurt me in this fight, too, but that’s never stopped me before.”

So why is Hernandez going through with the fight against the veteran Ramirez?

“If I can fight with broken knuckles and torn ligaments (as he has done earlier in his career), then I can fight with a screw loose,” Hernandez said. “Once the bell rings, all that about my hand, that’s gone. If it’s going to hurt, it’s going to hurt.

“My last fight was back in October, and it was time to fight again.”

Hernandez will have the operation in February, then take four or five months off before he fights again.

Boxing Notes

A trim-looking Meldrick Taylor is the most recent addition to the card here tonight. Taylor, who is being lined up for a rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez in May at the MGM, will fight a 10-round welterweight bout against Craig Houk, but it won’t be on the pay-per-view telecast. . . . The Taylor fight will be preceded by a women’s bout--Christy Martin vs. Suzie Melton.

There are plans for a night of rematches led by the Chavez-Taylor fight in May, with the possibility of Julian Jackson-Gerald McClellan, Simon Brown-Terry Norris and James Leija-Azumah Nelson rematches on the same card. . . . Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe’s next fight might be with Michael Bentt for Bentt’s World Boxing Organization title in Las Vegas next summer.

George Foreman’s next fight probably will be next spring in New Orleans, coinciding with Louisiana’s opening of casino gambling. . . . Oscar De La Hoya, training at Big Bear, is said to be ahead of schedule losing weight as he works down to the 130-pound junior-lightweight limit for his fight March 5 against Jimmi Bredahl. De La Hoya was said to have weighed 134 late last week.

Calendar

Monday: World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion Genaro Hernandez vs. Jorge (Cocas) Ramirez; Dick Tiger vs. Florencio Ibarra, middleweights; Forum, 7:30 p.m.