THE CHOSEN ONE

Oba Carr insists he isn’t concerned about his opponent in the opposite corner Saturday night--Oscar De La Hoya.

That’s because Carr is convinced he knows who is in his corner--God.

Athletes seeking divine blessings and guidance are nothing new. They have long looked to the heavens for protection from injury, for a source of inspiration, for a well from which to draw strength.

But Carr has taken it one step further as he prepares for this weekend’s World Boxing Council welterweight title fight at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center against De La Hoya, the heavily favored champion. Carr says simply that God has chosen him to win.

Period.

“We can already envision it,” said Carr’s father, trainer and best friend, Eddie Carr. “It’s already been done in heaven. Now it has to be done on Earth.”

To those who wonder why Oba would have an edge over De La Hoya in the grand scheme of things, Eddie has a ready answer.

“God has picked us for this particular fight,” he said. “And it’s got to be over somebody.”

Not convinced?

Listen to Oba try to explain it:

“People just do not understand. It’s like being anointed. A couple of tons of anointing oil will come down and a few drops will come out on me. It will be mesmerizing. It’s going to be something supernatural that the world is not ready for.

“I will resurrect boxing. It’s been dead and gone like I’ve been dead and gone.”

Perhaps because he thinks he is being overlooked as the De La Hoya opponent between Ike Quartey and Felix Trinidad, perhaps because the casual boxing fan wouldn’t know Oba Carr from Antoine Carr, perhaps because he is going up against a fighter generally considered the best welterweight in the world and perhaps the best pound-for-pound overall, perhaps for all of these reasons, Carr believes he needs a divine edge and a rubdown in anointing oil.

But perhaps he is selling himself short.

While logic seems to rule out an upset by Carr, he has an impressive record to match up against that of De La Hoya (30-0, 24 knockouts). After winning 168 of 176 amateur fights, Carr has fought 51 times as a professional and lost only twice, going 48-2-1. And those two losses were to Quartey and Trinidad, the fighters generally considered the two best welterweights behind De La Hoya.

And Carr knocked down each of them in title fights.

After Carr sent Trinidad to the canvas in the second round of their International Boxing Federation championship fight in December 1994, Trinidad rallied to win on an eighth-round knockout. Quartey won a decision over Carr in October 1996 in their World Boxing Assn. title fight, but not before he too went down, in the 11th round.

That Carr should come so close to a title didn’t surprise his father, who named his son Oba because it means “King” in Swahili.

The younger Carr, growing up in the Detroit area, found his career path at 6 when someone stole his bicycle. Carr may have been young, but he was no longer innocent. He decided that he was going to have to toughen up, especially if he found the thief. So he told his father he wanted to learn how to fight. Eddie obliged, signing Oba up at the Herman Gardens gym.

Sound familiar?

The same story of a boy losing his bike and finding his destiny is told of Muhammad Ali, who also put on the gloves after a thief took his bicycle.

And for a while, Carr, too, seemed headed for a prominent place in his sport. As an amateur, he won the National Junior Olympics, the Silver Gloves championship and, three times, he won a boxing title in the National Police Athletic League.

But then he took a different road from the one followed by Ali and De La Hoya. Instead of trying to win Olympic gold, Carr launched his professional career at 17.

He was a young man in a hurry. After scoring a first-round knockout over Marcus Reed in December 1989 for his first professional victory, Carr fought 14 times in 1990, a career workload for some. He won all 14 bouts, 10 by knockout.

Now at 27, he seems stuck on a plateau one big step from the top. With the exception of a disappointing draw against Anthony Jones in 1997, Carr beat everyone put in front of him, from Livingston Bramble to Frankie Randall.

Everyone, that is, until he got his title shots against Quartey and Trinidad.

But Carr said he has no regrets.

“You have to go through adversity to gain maturity,” he said. “You have to experience it. That’s life.

“If I had won those titles, I would be a complete mess. I had no identity at the age of 22, 23, 24. I didn’t know who I was.

“Now when I get the title, I will have the comfort and stability to carry through instead of being a nonsense-talking individual.”

Most would say Carr still talks nonsense when he insists there will be a supernatural force in the ring with him Saturday night.

But he also shows a realistic side when he reaches down and deals with the very real possibility of defeat Saturday night in another title shot.

“You can’t find yourself through a title,” he said. “But if you have already found yourself, you can still have peace if you lose. There is still victory in defeat. Every negative can be turned into a positive. You can always find a reason to conquer something else in life.”

Before him now, he has the task of trying to conquer De La Hoya. And for that, he’ll need all the help he can get.

Boxing Notes

Wednesday’s deadline for making the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad welterweight showdown passed without a deal being consummated, but enough progress was made in negotiations to extend the deadline to Friday. Promoter Bob Arum, who had imposed the deadline, said he was “optimistic” the fight would be held Sept 18. After Arum, De La Hoya’s promoter, had made an offer of $10 million plus a possible percentage of the pay-per-view revenue to Trinidad through his promoter, Don King, King made a counteroffer. Arum countered that Wednesday. It now appears the two sides will be able to reach a middle ground. . . .

World Boxing Council super-featherweight champion Floyd Mayweather (20-0, 15 knockouts), scheduled to defend his title Saturday night at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center on the undercard of the De La Hoya-Oba Carr championship fight, will be facing a substitute opponent. When challenger Goyo Vargas bowed out because of flu, Ugandan Justin Juuko (33-2-1, 25 knockouts) was put in as a replacement Wednesday night, but still must be approved by HBO, which is carrying the fight.

OSCAR DE LA HOYA vs. OBA CARR

WHEN: Saturday

WHERE: Mandalay Bay Events Center, Las Vegas

TV: HBO, 7 p.m.

AT STAKE: De La Hoya’s WBC welterweight title