O’Mara Faces Up to His Opponents : One Look at His Nose Tells You He Won’t Run From Weaver on Wednesday Night

His occupation is as plain as the nose on his face which, in its current posture, closely resembles the alignment of Florida’s eastern coast.

Wide, flat and battered, it bends east, then curves gradually westward.

George O’Mara, professional boxer, has lost track of the times his nose has been broken, offering for certain only that it has been rerouted “more than once.”

No kidding.

Occupational hazards have left O’Mara, 39, not only with a bent snout, but also with a nasally intonation similar to that of Lily Tomlin playing an operator.

Fortunately, his sense of humor is intact.

Pat Goossen, O’Mara’s trainer, recalls overhearing the following exchange between his fighter and a television announcer:

Broadcaster: “Has anyone ever told you that you look like [former heavyweight contender] Tex Cobb?”

O’Mara, without hesitation: “One of us should be insulted.”

If only he were so quick getting his gloves up.

“We’re just starting to work the term defense into George’s vocabulary,” Goossen said. “He’s a back-alley-type slugger, a street fighter. There’s nothing pretty about his style.”

Acknowledging that defense has not been his forte, O’Mara deadpanned, “Maybe that’s why my nose has been broken so often.”

Alert the plastic surgeons. O’Mara, a North Hollywood-based heavyweight with a 15-15-3 record, is set to face former world heavyweight champion Mike Weaver in the main event of a boxing card Wednesday night at the Warner Center Marriott.

Weaver is 44 years old, but his sculpted, 225-pound body appears as finely tuned as it was more than a decade ago when he wore the World Boxing Assn. title belt.

“Mike Weaver is a former champion, so anybody who tries to talk about the negatives with him is only fooling themselves,” O’Mara said last week as he prepared for a training session. “He’s in great shape, he’s skillful, and he hits like a truck.”

Weaver, who has a record of 39-16-1 with 28 knockouts, will be defending his National Boxing Assn. championship, a title O’Mara would love to wrest away.

“A victory would launch my career,” O’Mara said. “Mike Weaver is special because he is a former [world] champion, and that makes him special.

“I believe I’m special, too. But I haven’t proven it yet.”

O’Mara is probably best known for his second job, that of a character actor.

For the past 10 years he has secured enough on-screen work to qualify for insurance coverage by the Screen Actors Guild, a feat which places him in the top 5% of entertainers, according to an industry source.

Among his credits:

Lethal Weapon--”I got beat up by Mel Gibson. But at least they paid me for it.”

Rocky III--”I was the guy Mr. T beat up just before he fought Rocky. I had to fall backward out of the ring.”

Bigfoot, the Incredible Encounter--”I played an ex-Vietnam vet out in the woods. There were four of us: One psychotic lunatic, two other wild guys and one quiet, sensitive individual. I came in [for an audition] with my hair standing straight up and yelled and screamed. They gave me the quiet, sensitive role. I said, ‘Who were the three other guys, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and Charlie Manson?’ ”

During a five-year period when O’Mara was retired from boxing, he also gave stand-up comedy a try.

Asked if O’Mara was a skilled comedian, Arlene Lorre, a representative from a West Hollywood talent agency, recited the opening line of his act: “A funny thing happened on my way down to the canvas. . . .

“So, in answer to your question, no.”

Temporarily, both acting and comedy have been placed on hold to concentrate on preparing for Weaver.

“This is important,” O’Mara said of his training schedule. “If they hit you in acting it’s a mistake. If he hits me it’s because he’s trying to hurt me. I’d like to try to avoid that.”

Truth be told, that would be a change in form. O’Mara has never been one prone to avoid contact.

“Even as a child I was proud of my hard jaw,” he said. “My father used to tell me to hold my hands up. I’d say, ‘But Dad, the punches don’t hurt.’

“He’d say, ‘Well they hurt me. Put your hands up!’ As you can see, my nose wasn’t as strong as my jaw.”

Lorre put it this way: “George has a unique face. Let’s say he has a, um . . . His face . . . um . . . is as . . . is as concerned as it is lopsided.

“What he has is a permanent concerned look. And I would, too, in his position.”

As an actor, sometimes the look sells and other times it doesn’t.

“I’ve gone in for interviews before when my picture might as well been on the story board,” O’Mara said. “Then they’ll go and hire some guy who weighs 110 pounds and looks like a ballet dancer. You never know what they want. Lots of times, they don’t know what they want.”

Born and raised in New Jersey, O’Mara will be boxing for the first time in the San Fernando Valley, a place where he has lived for the past 15 years.

O’Mara’s most-impressive victory to date was his last, a unanimous decision last fall in Argentina over Southern American champion Walter Maseroni.

That matchup was born of circumstance. O’Mara just happened to be training at a Hollywood gymnasium when a call came in from a promoter looking for a heavyweight--one with a very special credential.

“I got that fight because I had a passport,” O’Mara said. “[The offer] was kind of on short notice so they needed someone who could get there.”

O’Mara accepted the invitation against the advice of his manager, Bob Schoenbren, who questioned whether his fighter would be treated fairly by foreign boxing officials.

After a typically slow start, O’Mara didn’t give them a choice, impressively overwhelming his opponent.

Still, when the bout was over, O’Mara had doubts about whether his hand would be the one raised.

“[Maseroni] was still standing, so you never know,” he said. “I was happy with what I accomplished and I figured if they wanted to rob me, well, it was their country.”

Schoenbren, who has been O’Mara’s manager for less than a year, believes an even bigger upset--one over Weaver--is possible.

“Weaver has limitations,” Schoenbren said. “Mike hits very, very hard. He always did. But even when he was younger he wasn’t the fastest heavyweight around. I think he’s the perfect opponent for George.”

Weaver feels the same way about O’Mara.

“His type of fighter, he stands right there in front of you,” Weaver said. “Can you imagine a guy standing right there in front of me, letting me hit him, as hard as I hit?

“He can’t out-box me. The guy is going to stay in front of me, and he’s not going to box and he’s not going to run. He can’t out-slug me, so how can he possibly beat me?”

O’Mara says his opponent will find out on Wednesday.

Afterward, perhaps, he will have an opportunity to play a role for which Goossen, his trainer, believes O’Mara is perfectly cast:

“A winner.”