Hernandez Goes for the Oscar

Oscar De La Hoya is the world lightweight champion, a glamour division in the world of boxing.

Genaro Hernandez is junior-lightweight champion, and the adjective says it all.

Oscar De La Hoya is a powerful puncher, the darling of the ringsiders who like mayhem more than magic in their pugs.

Genaro Hernandez is a clever boxer who dances out of harm’s way and wins from long range.

Oscar De La Hoya is boxing’s “Golden Boy.” Genaro Hernandez is “Who?”

Oscar De La Hoya won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics. Genaro Hernandez never even won a Golden Gloves regional.

Oscar De La Hoya gets around in a stretch limo. Genaro Hernandez, until recently, took the bus.

De La Hoya wears a Rolex watch. Hernandez asks, “Anybody got the time?”

De La Hoya trains in the cool, clear mountain fastness of Lake Arrowhead. Hernandez trains in the hot, smoggy fastness of the East L.A. barrio.

De La Hoya got a million dollars to turn pro. Hernandez had to pay 20 bucks for a license.

De La Hoya fights whomever he pleases, when he pleases. Hernandez had to give up his World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight title to fight De La Hoya.

De La Hoya has movie-star good looks. Hernandez would probably play his best friend and sidekick if they made a movie.

When De La Hoya fights, it’s an event. When Hernandez fights, it’s a secret.

De La Hoya fights for millions. Hernandez fights for the rent.

Society photographers shoot pictures of De La Hoya in his dressing room. Hernandez gets his picture taken at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

No one has to tell Genaro (Chicanito) Hernandez that life is unfair. Yet, he had virtually the same upbringing as his more famous counterpart. It isn’t as if he’s a nobody or he ran with gangs or held up liquor stores. He has worked hard at his profession. He’s on time, in shape and he’s undefeated in 32 fights.

He won his title in France and has defended it eight times, which should count for something. But the WBA insisted he fight some nobody for the title, instead of getting a big-money shot at De La Hoya.

De La Hoya, you might say, is a legend before his own time. Granted, he won his gold medal and, thus, stepped in the footsteps of such pugilistic greats as Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, to name a few.

But De La Hoya’s pro conquests hardly read like a Who’s Who of fisticuffs. Troy Dorsey, Paris Alexander, Narciso Valenzuela and Carl Griffith might have trouble cashing checks in a strange town. I mean, nobody ever said that, pound for pound, they were the best in the world.

Oscar De La Hoya has a lot to lose. Genaro Hernandez has only his anonymity to lose.

Which is why De La Hoya’s career is as carefully plotted as the invasion of the Low Countries. You’ll see no Pernell Whitaker or Frankie Randall on his card. Instead, the long-range plan is for a long, smooth, safe path to an eventual big-money shot with Julio Cesar Chavez, preferably when Julio is even more past his prime than he is now.

That is why Oscar is reaching down to the junior-lightweight ranks for an opponent who looks credible but beatable. This is not the first time Oscar has done this. He also did it with the clownish Jorge Paez, whom he flattened in two rounds last year.

Hernandez doesn’t propose to go so easily. His opponents don’t exactly make up a list of household names in boxing, either. The junior-lightweight division doesn’t have many of those. But he has taken the act to France, to Japan three times, to Mexico City and Phoenix.

I went down to the Brooklyn Gym in Boyle Heights to check on the identity of this latest hand-picked opponent for the golden Oscar. Is he just another instrument for Oscar to give a recital on?

Chicanito doesn’t think so. He thinks we have it all backward. Hernandez, who fights De La Hoya at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas next Saturday, thinks he will be the artist and Oscar the accompaniment. The cameras should be on him. You’ll see, he assures. The Rolex will be on the other wrist, the (bench-made) shoe on the other foot, so to speak.

At least that’s what he believes.

“Everybody tells me, ‘Oscar is better than you. He’s bigger than you, he’s stronger than you,’ ” he says. “But we’re not going to lift weights. We’re going to box.

“I’m nobody’s steppingstone.”

Genaro is a rarity among Latin fighters. Usually, their style is aggressive--brawl, attack, as if slipping a punch or drawing back from one were unmanly. Their style is such that they seem disappointed if you miss them with a punch.

Hernandez has had to modify this for a very good reason: His hands are brittle and have had to be repaired surgically after some fights. You can pile up points with brittle hands, but toe-to-toe slugging is not advisable.

“The idea is not to get hit,” Genaro says. “Nobody ever won a fight with his chin.”

He is under no illusions, though. If he does win, he doesn’t expect the headlines to say, “Hernandez Wins,” but rather. “De La Hoya Loses.” The best he can hope for is, “Unknown Defeats De La Hoya.”

“That’s better than ‘De La Hoya Beats Unknown,’ ” he says, laughing.

Hernandez has an advantage in reach. But history tells us that reach is a real advantage only at boardinghouse dinners. In the ring, it’s not the longest punches but the hardest that win.

De La Hoya has the hardest. Hernandez hopes to have the most. Let Oscar go home coach for a change. When your name is “Champ,” everybody knows you.