Oscar Delay Hoya?

He looks like a rock star.

Or a dancer.

Or maybe someone who should have a white tiger on a leash.

In the billboard jungle along the strip, the displays for Oscar De La Hoya’s comeback fight Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena are largely indistinguishable from those heralding the performances of Wayne Newton or Danny Gans. Is De La Hoya the Golden Boy of boxing, or a new addition to Siegfried and Roy?

Newspaper and magazine ads and television commercials are the same. De La Hoya, looking like Russell Crowe in Gladiator, strips off his robe to reveal a bronzed body. “The hero returns,” say the ads.

Returns to what?

No picture or even mention of De La Hoya’s opponent, Arturo Gatti. No feel of an athletic event that would attract sports fans.

It’s all part of what is shaping up as a disastrous debut for De La Hoya’s new promoter, Jerry Perenchio, and a potential financial bath for the fight.

Ticket sales are disappointing and the telecast of the match won’t even be seen live in Los Angeles or the rest of the Pacific time zone, being shown instead on a tape-delay basis beginning at 10:45 p.m. on HBO.

Oscar De La Hoya, billed as the best fighter to come out of L.A. in the days when promoter Bob Arum was doing the hyping, is now on tape delay?

“Jerry and I are going to show the world how boxing should be promoted,” De La Hoya proclaimed last summer after he left Arum.

We can only assume Perenchio feels the same way because he doesn’t talk to the media, except by questions submitted in writing.

One good question might be: Do you know what you are doing?

The publicity campaign has generated ticket sales of only 5,000 so far for Saturday’s fight in a 14,000-seat arena.

With discounts and giveaways, a process known as papering the house, the arena probably will be largely filled.

But such tactics were rarely if ever necessary in the past for De La Hoya, formerly the greatest revenue producer in boxing history among non-heavyweights. This was a man who once drew over 40,000 fans in El Paso to see him fight Patrick Charpentier, an opponent some in the audience could have beaten.

Against the less-than-ferocious Derrell Coley, De La Hoya drew more than 13,000 in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The telecast of Saturday’s match has been badly bungled. HBO, which is legally obligated to cover the fight, didn’t want this date because of the huge appeal of March Madness. It is not sound programming to try to lure sports fans away from the NCAA basketball tournament in significant numbers.

With that in mind, the cable network scheduled an original movie, “Wit,” hoping to attract non-sports fans.

De La Hoya’s side, however, insisted on the date, with the result that De La Hoya-Gatti will follow the movie, starting at 10:45 live in the Eastern time zone and on tape-delay here.

It has been 25 years since Perenchio promoted his last fight, the 1976 heavyweight match between George Foreman and Joe Frazier. Is the De La Hoya publicity campaign a sign Perenchio has lost touch with the industry?

“It’s not a question of being out of touch. Those who say that are just jealous,” said Howard Rose, who is running Perenchio’s boxing operation. “Those who say we are doing things the old ways don’t seem to realize we are also doing things the right way. Don’t tell us how to market. We know how to market and we think we’ll do it better.

“This is Oscar’s return to boxing after nine months away. Where Oscar is is where the money is. Nobody has seen a promotion like this one. Oscar is the artist. It’s entertainment and we are promoting it as such.”

The key word is artist. Rose, who was involved with Perenchio in his first involvement in boxing from 1971-76, has since gone on to become a very successful music agent, with clients ranging from Elton John to Jimmy Buffett.

Does Rose see De La Hoya as a performer or athlete?

“Boxing is no different than the music business,” Rose said. “There is no difference between an Oscar De La Hoya and an Elton John or a Jimmy Buffett. Everyone in both fields wants the best deal.

“The reason people are jealous is because we are changing the rules to the artists’ side, to give them better financial representation. People forget whose name is on the marquee. It’s not Jerry Perenchio and it’s not Howard Rose. It’s Oscar De La Hoya.”

Some others close to the promotion of the fight, fearful of being quoted, conceded privately that they feel the ad campaign, which does not take advantage of the appeal of a less talented but highly explosive opponent in Gatti, has been poorly conceived. Of course, the fact that De La Hoya has lost two of his last three fights might have something to do with the sluggish interest.

Of this much there can be no dispute: Perenchio is not a man to be underestimated.

Eyebrows were raised 30 years ago when Perenchio, who had made his fortune as an entertainment agent and deal maker, leaped into the fierce battle for the promotion rights to the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight. Along with Jack Kent Cooke, Perenchio agreed to pay both fighters a then-unheard-of $2.5 million each and wound up with a match that generated $20 million. Perenchio himself pocketed $5 million.

“Everyone at the time thought he was crazy to give the fighters $5 million,” Rose said.

When the Foreman-Frazier fight was originally to be held at Yankee Stadium, Perenchio had 70,000 seats to sell. He decided to offer 20,000 to customers at $2 each, using the gimmick that they had to pay with a $2 bill.

“Those are 20,000 seats we probably wouldn’t sell anyway,” Perenchio told publicist Bill Caplan at the time. “And this way, we have 20,000 people walking around, selling the fight for us.”

Nobody can question Perenchio’s ability to make money. He began with a catering business in his undergraduate days at UCLA and is today a billionaire.

So it might be premature to call his return to boxing a failure.

But those billboards don’t look like winners.