In King’s World, the Hype’s the Thing

Can you hear it? That unceasing background roar? The lawn mower next door? A leaf blower down the street?

I can hear it. It is causing my hair to grow into thousands of tiny strands, stand up on my head, turn snow white.

I am sitting in a press room at the Mandalay Bay hotel on Thursday, two days before Fernando Vargas meets Felix Trinidad, trying to write an important column about perhaps the most important fight of the year.

But Don King won’t shut up.

He walked in early, picked up a telephone he can use free, and began calling radio stations. For several hours the promoter has been selling and amusing and--let’s be honest here--scaring the bejabbers out of listeners from San Francisco to Miami.

Judging from the bellowing tenor of his words--or at least those that resemble words--this is not a fight, it is a national anthem.

“Excitamente! Excitamente! Excitamente!”

Into the press room walks a man from the Vargas camp. I know, because it is written over virtually every part of his maroon leather sweatsuit.

“Where is Vargas?” he says. “We can’t find Vargas.”

Into the press room walks a man from the Trinidad camp. I know, because the day before this same man was running through this same room mocking Vargas with chants of, “Meow, meow, meow.”

King takes a breath, and the press room is momentarily filled with a new rumble, an animated discussion about an important upcoming rematch.

One fighter is younger and fitter. The other is bigger and hungrier.

Oscar De La Hoya and Trinidad? Nice try.

This is about Bill Caplan, a publicist for Bob Arum, and Greg Fritz, a publicist for Don King. The two middle-aged men brawled here a year ago. Nobody blinked.

In boxing, everyone stopped blinking shortly after “Raising” Cain knocked the short hairs off “Willing And” Abel.

“I think Fritz is a little quicker,” somebody says thoughtfully.

“Viva Puerto Rico! Land of the free and home of the brave!”

In these times of thoughtful pauses and furrowed brows, covering most sporting events is like attending church.

Covering boxing is like going to an exorcism.

Heads spin, guts spew, eyes pop.

Then they fight.

Other sports have carefully orchestrated pregame news conferences.

“Boxing has dysfunctional weddings,” said Bert Sugar, boxing historian.

Other sports have carefully guarded images, and players are protected from questions that are viewed as arrest warrants.

Boxing has exchanges like this:

Vargas: “I have two young children.”

Reporter: “Both by the same mother?”

“Tito, Tito, the Puerto Rican people cry! V-i-c-t-o-r-y!”

It is not news that boxing only cares if you spell the names right. But this week, faced with a tough promotion for what could be a terrific fight, it barely cares about even that.

The Times ran two Vargas stories Thursday filled with anecdotes and quotes that made him seem like somewhat of an unlikable thug.

A member of the Vargas team ran up to the two reporters waving the stories.

“Great photo!” he said. “Great job!”

The problem this week is that Vargas is still not nationally known, Trinidad is shy and speaks no English, and many potential fans are saving their money for the holidays.

Boxing has combated this with all the subtlety of a man cannibalizing an appendage.

“Muhammad Ali taught boxing that the more outrageous you are, the more exposure you get,” Sugar said. “You only wish they would show as much vinegar in the actual fight.”

“The fever has begun to pitch in!”

It started Sunday with a 2,500-person rally in Los Angeles at Olvera Street. Don King appealed to the largely Mexican American audience by trivializing its heritage.

“Fernando will redeem the disgrace that Oscar has brought upon the Mexican people,” he said. “From Pancho Villa to Zapata, you are all crying out for redemption. Fernando has the opportunity to make Mexico supreme again.”

A couple of days later in a news conference, King expressed amazement that one of Trinidad’s managers, Nicolas Medina, had attended an Ivy League school.

“It is very difficult for a Puerto Rican to go to Harvard,” he shouted.

That was shortly after Vargas’ promoter, Gary Shaw, dropped an ethnic slur on his own fighter.

“When you see the body on Fernando, you will not believe he’s Mexican!” he said.

Boxing has been doing this for years, pitting racial and ethnic groups against one another, proudly making pronouncements that would cost most normal business people their jobs, all in the name of ticket sales.

“In boxing, nothing is correct, everything is fair game,” said Sugar. “But remember, long before there was a Jackie Robinson, there was a Joe Louis.”

Another reason few notice the racial and ethnic remarks is that they are essentially needles in a haystack. A flaming purple haystack.

This was evident Thursday when the prefight news conference occurred precisely as scheduled.

1. Don King talked for 45 minutes.

2. Some wacko in a camouflage jumpsuit yelled his support of Mike Tyson.

3. Several wackos in embroidered jeans purred at Vargas.

4. A coin was tossed to determine who would enter the ring first.

5. King called it a “Toin Coss.”

6. King introduced the approximately 276 people on the dais, including one club fighter from Tennessee he compared to Andrew Jackson.

7. King introduced female fighter Christy Martin as “curvaceous and voluptuous.”

8. Martin glared.

9. Martin’s husband, Jim, who upon first meeting Martin ordered a fighter to break her ribs, chuckled.

10. King talked for 45 more minutes, at which point a dog ran through the room.

After finally hanging up the phone late Thursday afternoon, King walks over to a table where Times boxing writer Steve Springer is working at his laptop computer.

“Is the paper smoking, Springer?” he shouts. “Is it smoking?”

As long as you don’t ask us to inhale.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Felix Trinidad

Fight by Fight

Record: 38-0, 31 KOs