Camacho Fails as a Pitchman

Important note for those of you paying close attention to boxing for the first time:

If you’re looking to find dignity and high-mindedness among the fistic class in the wake of the Mike Tyson mania, find somebody other than Hector Camacho, who verges on giddy incoherence on his best days.

Lacking the selling point of a competitive fight, promoter Bob Arum is hoping Camacho’s well-worn quasi-comedy act can spice up interest in his September welterweight bout against Oscar De La Hoya, a 15-1 betting favorite.

But Camacho’s recent media appearances to promote the bout have been consistently blurry and stilted--to the point of infuriating the usually imperturbable De La Hoya.

De La Hoya, who had always taken a conciliatory approach toward his opponent during the lead-up to big fights, has been in no mood for respectful words this time.

“I’m going to let him go six rounds,” De La Hoya said recently, as Camacho looked on, “then I’m going to take him out in the seventh.’

This was days before Camacho’s rambling, racist, befuddling commentary a few days ago on CNN/SI when asked about Tyson and the people who follow him.

After using an extremely offensive racial term to describe the Tyson entourage and saying the atmosphere “scares people away,” Camacho tellingly ended the spiel this way:

“I don’t know what I just said. You know, I’m not your politician. That’s what Mike’s problem is, he’s got too many . . . around him.”

In typical Camacho fashion, his attempts during Friday’s news conference in Las Vegas to defuse the situation failed. Repeating the derogatory term, Camacho said Tyson was “like a beast.”

A final point: Why would anybody who knew anything about Camacho want to know what he thought, anyway?