Fighting For Respect

Oscar De La Hoya splitting with Bob Arum? That’s what De La Hoya threatened to do last weekend if it were true that Arum had already signed for a rematch between De La Hoya and Ike Quartey, who will fight for the first time Saturday.

De La Hoya said that in anger. He said that any rematch agreement was signed without his knowledge or permission. He said all that last weekend on Univision, a Spanish-language network, in response to a question by interviewer Bernardo Osuna.

By Monday, the buzz through the boxing community about a De La Hoya-Arum split, which had been long rumored, was being denied by both sides. It had all been a misunderstanding, the two camps insisted.

On Tuesday at a Dodger Stadium news conference to promote Saturday’s World Boxing Council welterweight title fight between De La Hoya and Quartey at the Thomas & Mack Center, Arum introduced De La Hoya, as he customarily does.

But before De La Hoya had a chance to speak, Arum pulled a contract out of his jacket pocket with the cameras running and announced that he is cutting De La Hoya in as a promotional partner. Top Rank, Arum’s organization, and Oscar De La Hoya Enterprises will co-promote’s De La Hoya’s Saturday title defense.

Was this Arum’s only way of hanging on to De La Hoya? Was he forced to share the promotional pot with De La Hoya or lose it altogether?

Although the timing of the announcement in the wake of the Spanish-language interview certainly seems to indicate that, both sides forcefully deny any connection. Both say talks about including De La Hoya in the promotional end of the operation have been going on since De La Hoya-Julio Cesar Chavez II in September.

“I had no idea Bob was going to do that,” De La Hoya said of Arum’s public display of their new agreement, “but I will be happy to be with Bob Arum for the rest of my career. He’s the reason I’m here. I never, ever want to pull away from Bob Arum. I have never considered changing. Who else is out there? Bob Arum is like a father to me. He’s always been nice to me. It’s a perfect relationship. I’m glad we are going to be partners.

“We are creating boxing history here. It’s never been done before for a fighter to be partners with a promoter.”

Both Arum and De La Hoya downplay the significance of the fighter’s comments in the Spanish-language interview.

“I’m human. It was a big misinterpretation,” De La Hoya said. “At first, when I heard that he had signed Ike Quartey for a rematch, I thought that he might have no confidence in me. But now I realize that is not the case. That is done all the time.”

Arum agreed, saying that he has an option on a rematch between De La Hoya and Quartey because that is standard operating procedure for a promoter, regardless of how much faith he has in his own fighter.

But why would Arum, who along with chief rival Don King has long ruled the promotional field, willingly give De La Hoya a large chunk of the income he has so long reserved for himself?

“I did it to protect myself on the downside,” Arum said. “The pay-per-view figures now are all over the place. It’s an idea Oscar and I have been kicking around, and I jumped on it. If the fight hits really big, I’ll make a little less, but if the fight doesn’t do well, I’ll lose a little less. It’s like the stock market. If everything is up, Oscar will be happy. If it’s a bear market, he’s not going to be so happy.”

Arum says that he lost $500,000 to $750,000 in De La Hoya-Chavez II.

“I’m not looking anymore to spend three to four months working on a fight only to wind up on the losing end,” Arum said.

Under the new agreement, the fighter, his father, Joel, and advisor Mike Hernandez through Oscar De La Hoya Enterprises will be actively involved in promotion, from the selection of opponents to the selection of the site. But, Arum said, that’s already the case to a large extent.

“How can I tell Oscar to fight someone?” Arum said. “If he didn’t want to fight someone in the past, he didn’t. I can’t do the fighting. But now he will become more intimately involved in the promotion. He will be in on the decision about how much his opponent gets and all the other prefight participation. And, of course, he’ll be in on the profits. This is an experiment for one fight.”

Not necessarily for De La Hoya. The 26-year-old fighter, who has talked in the past about getting out of boxing before his 30th birthday and pursuing careers in either acting or architecture, now talks about a career as a promoter.

“I want to help young fighters and protect them,” De La Hoya said.

The move into promotion by fighters seems to be the new trend in boxing. Mike Tyson signed with the America Presents promotional organization for only two fights. Roy Jones and Hamed Naseem operate with promoters on a fight-by-fight basis in order to better control their careers.

De La Hoya has no complaints about the way Arum has handled his career. With the $9 million he is guaranteed for Saturday’s fight, he will have made nearly $90 million since turning professional, all that without yet facing a fighter who had a realistic chance of beating him.

But what De La Hoya is seeking in getting involved in promotion is not more wealth, but more control.

“This way, nothing will be guaranteed,” he said. “I’m going to be taking more chances and there are a lot of numbers that will be jumping around. It’s one more thing for me to worry about when I don’t really need to have that worry.”

Arum, who has been with De La Hoya from nearly the beginning of his professional career, which started after he won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, still has a contract with De La Hoya.

“It’s a golden contract,” said Bruce Trampler, Arum’s matchmaker.

But it’s only as golden as the golden boy wants to make it. If De La Hoya decides he likes making all the promotional decisions, if he finds that he wants to keep it in the family, he might decide that Oscar De La Hoya Enterprises doesn’t need Top Rank.

That would be a big blow to Arum, who, at 67, shows no interest in retirement. He has a group of young fighters, the most promising being WBC junior-lightweight champion Floyd Mayweather. But De La Hoya remains Arum’s main meal ticket.

So, he has given him a huge chunk of the promotional pie and hopes that will satisfy De La Hoya’s growing appetite for control.

Fight Facts

Oscar De La Hoya (29-0, 24 knockouts) vs. Ike Quartey (34-0-1, 29 knockouts)

Saturday, Las Vegas, Pay-per-view, 6 p.m.