Preliminaries Are Done for De La Hoya and Chavez

Gentlemen, start your hype.

Like every good warmup act in every showroom up and down The Strip, Scott Walker and Darryl Tyson whetted the audience’s appetite for the headline performers and then made a quick exit Friday night at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion. Each fell in the second round of their respective fights, against Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya, to clear the stage for the act everyone wants to see: Chavez against De La Hoya on June 7.

In the final tuneup for the June fight, Chavez stopped Walker at 2:45 of the second round of their scheduled 10-rounder. De La Hoya knocked out Tyson at 2:38 of the second round of their scheduled 12-rounder. There wasn’t much talk about Walker or Tyson at the postfight news conference.

Instead, there talk was of odds. De La Hoya is favored.

There was talk of ticket sales. The fight will be held in Caesars’ outdoor area, which seats 18,000. With tickets priced from $100 to $700, promoter Bob Arum says there are already requests for 16,000 seats. Arum said he hopes to get the seating capacity of the outdoor arena expanded for this fight.

And there was plenty of talk about the upcoming fight.

“With all preparation I am going to do over the next three months,” said Chavez through a translator, “it is going to be very difficult for [De La Hoya] to beat me.”

Countered De La Hoya: “I will train for three months and one day.”

Both men wanted good fights Friday night so they could get in some needed work and, in that regard, both were disappointed.

De La Hoya (21-0, 19 knockouts) spent much of the first round against Tyson (47-9-1, 24 knockouts) feeling out his opponent.

But when De La Hoya lashed out in the second round, he received little in the way of a counterattack.

A left uppercut by De La Hoya staggered Tyson, and he never seemed to recover.

Finally, De La Hoya pounded Tyson with a right hand to the left kidney area. Tyson went down on one knee and could not get back up before the count had been completed.

“I thought it would go six to eight rounds,” De La Hoya said. “I really thought it would be a much more difficult fight. When I realized it wasn’t, I took him out.”

Chavez (97-1-1, 79 knockouts) has struggled in recent appearances, but not Friday night.

Walker (21-4-1, 12 knockouts) admitted he entered the ring nervous at the idea of fighting a boxing legend.

Yet Walker actually won the first round on two of the three judges’ cards.

It was a different story in the second round. Chavez got interested and Walker got beat.

Pounding away with rights and lefts, Chavez got Walker into a helpless position on the ropes.

Walker went down, on purpose he later insisted, to catch his breath. Referee Joe Cortez wasn’t buying it. He signaled that the fight was over.

“I was a little sick all week,” Chavez said, “but I had to win to go on and prove I could beat Oscar De La Hoya.”

Said Walker: “I felt like if I got up and survived the round, I could have gotten it all together. I could have gotten back in the hunt.”

In reality, he was never in it. Nor was Tyson. Now they are both footnotes to history.

And that boxing history will be made June 7.

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Boxing Notes

In the first preliminary fight, former pro football running back Alonzo Highsmith (9-0, seven knockouts) stopped Gary Butler (11-6-1, six knockouts) 38 seconds into the second round of a scheduled six-rounder. . . . World Boxing Union lightweight champion George Scott (28-1, 13 knockouts) defended his title by knocking out Shane Gannon (22-2, seven knockouts) at 1:59 of the first round of their scheduled 12-rounder. . . . Long Beach heavyweight Jeremy Williams (24-1, 21 knockouts) was a TKO winner over Samson Cohen (11-6-1, six knockouts) at 1:47 of the first round of their scheduled 10-rounder. . . . Darryl Tyson received $75,000 for his losing effort against Oscar De La Hoya. Scott Walker got a $62,500 payday for losing to Julio Cesar Chavez.

* BOXING HISTORY

After tonight, Christy Martin will be more than just a woman boxer as she becomes the first to fight before a national TV audience. C7