Only Thing Sweet Is Whitaker’s Science

Then there was the New Yorker cartoon in which the prizefighter, shaken, is seen leaning over and whispering to his manager at the weigh-in and the manager points to the opponent and says, “My boy says he don’t fight till he finds out exactly why they call that guy ‘the Bushwick Assassin.’ ”

So, Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center here, Oscar De La Hoya won’t have to worry. He’s fighting a fighter they call “Sweet Pea.”

In the field of propaganda warfare, a nickname like that is not exactly designed to strike terror in the hearts of opponents. It falls far short of dropping leaflets promising a carpet bombing.

But a fighter like Pernell Whitaker would probably inspire fear even if his nickname were “Sweetheart.”

First of all, he’s had 42 fights and never really lost any of them. A “draw” with Julio Cesar Chavez and a decision loss in Paris to the local favorite, Jose Luis Ramirez--a decision he reversed easily in a rematch--are the only “blots” on his record.

Fighters are named Pernell and Evander nowadays--probably because they need soothing handles and innocuous nicknames to lure unwary foes into matches. Opponents need to be reassured into signing. Old-time fighters had more aggressive battle handles, such as Tuffy Griffith, K.O. Christner and nicknames like “the Bomber,” and “the Mauler” and “the Toy Bulldog.”

The adjective most often used to describe Whitaker is “slick.” He’s like a guy with his own deck or dice. His ring style is to get you to over-bet, then show his aces. He’ll throw a shutout. He’s aloof in the ring and outside it. He’s so quick, he’s almost invisible. Opponents spend most of the fight trying to find him, never mind hit him.

“He can make you look ridiculous,” warns his manager, Lou Duva.

He has been known to have his opponent so thoroughly confused that he’s facing the wrong way and Whitaker will tap him on the back and say, “Over here, sport!”

Even though he’s the champion, the World Boxing Council welterweight title holder, he’s getting $4 million less than his challenger, Oscar De La Hoya, $6 million vs. Oscar’s $10 million. Challengers are supposed to take less, not more.

Whitaker marches to his own music, anyway. Literally. He came to his prefight news conference at Caesars Palace the other day complete with headset and boom-box and, as the officials went through their prefight hype, he sat there, his head bobbing, his shoulders swaying, listening to music no one else could hear. Or, maybe, want to. He thus missed hearing Duva describing him as a fighter who could beat you either way--left-handed or right-handed.

“He’s amphibious!” Duva announced triumphantly.

He may not be amphibious, but Whitaker is ambidextrous, all right. His nickname is not likely to be “the Frog,” but his boxing style is hard to anticipate. He’s like a golfer who invents shots around the green.

Sweet Pea insists he is not annoyed that De La Hoya gets almost twice as much money, but he’s insulted that the fight public deems Oscar the star, with billing over the title, whereas he is treated as strictly The Opponent.

“He’s fighting the king!” he protests. “He’s not fighting some Joe Blow. People act as if he is doing me a favor! But I’m the champeen here! He’s a nobody to me! I haven’t been defeated in 15 years. I want to show the world that I dictate everything that goes on in that ring.

“There’s a lot of pressure on that kid! You don’t have to give me anything ‘cause you can bronze me and put me in the Hall of Fame right now. If he beats me, he’ll be beating the king but if I beat him he’ll just be an average fighter again.

“This is no rock concert! This is no movie set! This is not the Jay Leno show! This is a fight! Reality will set in for him Saturday night when he realizes this isn’t a script for him to read. He’ll be all alone in there. I will pick up my Oscar Saturday night.”

Sweet Pea would probably like to relegate Oscar to the status of just another pretty face but the facts of the matter are, the fight world was perplexed when De La Hoya’s camp took the fight.

The thinking is, De La Hoya is now a marketable box office draw. He can fight a succession of “tomato cans”--fight mob terminology for brawlers of minimal skills--and pile up respectable purses.

Whitaker is no tomato can. To be sure, he is 33 years old. But that may not be old enough.

“He will take De La Hoya to school,” darkly predicts Duva, adding, “I don’t know why [De La Hoya’s group] took the fight. It was a mistake.”

For Whitaker, this will be the defining bout of his career.

“He knows this is the fight he will be remembered by,” assents Duva. “His whole career is wrapped up in this here fight here.”

The fight is billed as for the “pound-for-pound” championship of the world. This is a designation invented for the late Sugar Ray Robinson and it’s meant to signify that, if the holder weighed 50 to 70 pounds more, he would be heavyweight champion and best fighter in the world.

The title has more or less remained open since Sugar Ray I departed. But if Whitaker “wins” it Saturday night, they’ll have to do more than designate him pound-for-pound winner. They’ll have to do something about “Sweet Pea” too. Something like “the Toy Bomber” would be in order.

Or maybe they can just give him Oscar for a doorstop.