Comments Not Music to Everyone’s Ears

Remarks made by television commentator Larry Merchant about the appropriateness of using a Mariachi band before Saturday night’s Oscar De La Hoya-Pernell Whitaker title fight has provoked some angry reaction.

Promoter Bob Arum has demanded an apology, and there have been about 30 calls of protest to the Los Angeles office of TVKO, the pay-per-view company that telecast the fight. There were also scattered protests in other cities.

On the telecast, Merchant said: “You know, guys, it really doesn’t make any difference what kind of music they play before a fight. But I’d like to remind you and everyone out there that both Pernell Whitaker and Oscar De La Hoya are born and bred American.

“This is a gesture to the great American, er, the great Mexican fight fans, who support the promoter. But, in a way, it slights the fans of the champion whose title is at stake, Pernell Whitaker. In other words, in my view, as wonderful as the music is, and it is, in this setting, it sucks. Unless they follow it with some soul music, which I don’t think they will.

“This is a marketing ploy, using music to get Mexican fans, not Mexican-Americans, but Mexican fans to support De La Hoya.”

De La Hoya is a Mexican-American, Whitaker an African-American.

Arum, who admitted he hadn’t actually seen a transcript of Merchant’s comments, said, “Larry Merchant will never again work a Top Rank [Arum’s company] pay-per-view telecast unless he apologizes.”

Merchant, now in his 20th year with HBO, said: “I have no problem explaining and clarifying what I said and what I meant . . . If I have offended anyone, I am sorry. I was talking about the unfairness of playing one fighter’s music and not the other. When a fighter comes from another country to fight an American, we play the Star-Spangled Banner and the national anthem of the other fighter’s country and that is absolutely as it should be. But when you have two American fighters, to play the music of the background of one and not the other is not even-handed. When the other guy is champion, that is not appropriate or fair.”

De La Hoya was clearly the favorite of the 12,200 at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center.