Mano a Mano : A Look at the Recipes for Victory as Chavez and De La Hoya Square Off Tonight in Las Vegas

Tonight is not so much about what Oscar De La Hoya has to do, it’s about what he has to be:

Alert enough to know that Julio Cesar Chavez’s chin and guts can turn bad moments into Chavez triumphs, smart enough to stay away from being tricked into a slug-it-out test of machismo, loose enough to keep Chavez lunging and uncomfortable under fire, and confident enough to pull the trigger when the opening is there and the crowd is thundering.

But more than any of that, tonight is about De La Hoya willing himself to be the fighter and the man everybody around this sport has predicted he could be.

Tonight is about what De La Hoya can be, and what he should be.

What he wants to be.

He has the speed, the skill and the power. He has had that for all of his boxing career, when he suffered two first-round knockdowns early in his career and as he has shed his mechanical style and moved to become more elusive and mobile.

Tonight is about all of that, of course, because De La Hoya can do more things to Chavez than any of the previous 99 opponents Chavez has faced. He can swarm Chavez with combinations, he can back off and answer a forward charge with counterpunching precision.

But he will also get hit, probably harder than anybody has ever hit him. And he cannot quail when that happens, or else this whole thing goes up in flames.

When it came down to it, Meldrick Taylor was not great enough to survive Chavez in 1990, though he was good enough to take Chavez to the ledge. De La Hoya has to push him off.

But amid torturous weather and the withering attention of the boxing world, this fight is a passage: How great can Oscar De La Hoya be?

Fifteen thousand Latino fans will be cheering against him, and Chavez will be grinning and daring him to blast away. The rest is up to De La Hoya.

“Is he a great talent? Yes,” trainer Teddy Atlas said. “But being a great fighter and champion means more than just talent. It’s being able to deal with pressure, being able to deal with money, being able to deal with adverse conditions and controversies and temptation.

“It means having tremendous character, tested with time. It doesn’t mean you’ve had 20 good fights.”

If De La Hoya does not come out scared and skittish, there are five easy steps to a knockout:

1--If Chavez attacks De La Hoya, he opens himself up to punishment, probably even more than he can absorb. Last September, David Kamau landed all kinds of power shots on Chavez, had him teetering toward defeat for seven rounds, and Kamau is no De La Hoya.

2--If Chavez stays back and tries to box, the words target practice come loudly to mind.

3--If Chavez is trailing and hurting, his best chance is the one-punch shocker that De La Hoya has been vulnerable to in the past. But Chavez is no one-punch knockout artist, and the times De La Hoya has gone down, he has gotten back up.

4--If the fight progresses into the late rounds, Chavez has been staggered before and been put on the floor.

5--Nobody finishes wounded boxers more furiously than De La Hoya.

Chavez, in so many ways, is a kind of anti-De La Hoya: Four inches shorter, of limited athletic skills and the recipient of respect more for how long he has sustained himself than for the spectacle of his rise.

He’s a symbol, an idol, and the archetype for everything many Latino fight fans want to see in a man and fighter. Chavez’s punches are a slow hammer--if he lands enough of them for a long enough time, eventually, the target begins to shatter.

If you can avoid the hammer, you can beat him, it’s all up to you.

And for that alone, Julio Cesar Chavez is worth the money they are paying him.

De La Hoya is a whole other thing in the ring: His fights have all been set at his own pace, dictated by his punching power. His opponents have no option, and no escape.

Chavez, if De La Hoya has it within him to seize this moment, will have no option, either.

Prediction: De La Hoya, by seventh-round technical knockout.

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Your Scorecard

Chavez vs. De La Hoya will be scored on the 10-point must system, meaning the winner will get a 10-9 score for winning a somewhat close round.

A 10-8 score normally goes to a boxer winning a one-sided round, such as when the winner of a round scores a knockdown.

The judges can also score the round a tie (10-10). The winner of the fight is the who scores highest on 2 of the 3 judges’ cards.

Noted Nevada judge Jerry Roth offers these tips for those inclined to score tonight’s fight:

“To win a round, a boxer must land a greater number of scoring punches than his opponent, while at the same time avoiding his opponent’s punches.

“Two key words are effective aggression.

“Also, punches must land in a scoring area--the front of the body, the ribs, or the head. Blows to the upper arm or the back, for example, aren’t scoring blows.”

Note: Judges’ scorecards will be published Saturday

THE FACTS

Who: Julio Cesar Chavez (champion) vs. Oscar De La Hoya (challenger).

What: World Boxing Council super-lightweight title.

When: Tonight, 8:30 (approximately).

Where: Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.

TV: Closed-circuit only. See TV-Radio column, C2.

Radio: Round-by-round reports, KNX (1070).

Tale of the Tape

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Chavez DeLaHoya Record 97-1-1 21-0 Knockouts 79 19 Age 33 23 Weight 139 139 Height 5-7 5-11 Reach 68 73 Chest (normal) 37 37 Chest (expanded) 39 39 Biceps 13 13 1/2 Forearm 11 11 Waist 31 31 Thigh 20 21 Calf 13 1/2 13 1/2 Neck 16 1/2 15 Wrist 6 7 Fist 11 9

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