Chaos Doesn’t Appear to Bother De La Hoya

Two more diary days with Oscar until he gets his butt kicked.

LAS VEGAS -- It’s chaos backstage. The big fight on Saturday might be off.

I love it. Either Oscar De La Hoya avoids getting whupped, or I get the chance to see how tense and annoyed he gets given this considerable distraction.

There are hundreds of reporters sitting in the MGM Hollywood Theater a few feet away waiting for the start of a news conference already 45 minutes delayed. They’re used to this, of course, because it’s boxing.

Oscar is sitting in a backstage room waiting for Ricardo Mayorga and promoter Don King to arrive. There’s a flurry of activity and Mayorga is outside Oscar’s dressing room, the first thought being he’s looking to bum a cigarette off someone.

He says he just wants to chat with Oscar, a little late I’d think to start asking for boxing tips. It’s a tense situation, though, because Mayorga has made disparaging remarks about Oscar’s wife. I’ve met Oscar’s wife, and fortunately Millie isn’t here. She’d kick Mayorga’s butt.

Oscar agrees to meet, and handlers from both sides join the confab along with King, which means this could go on forever. Mayorga is talking loudly in Spanish to Oscar, who just stands there staring at him. I’m pretty sure he understands Spanish.

An interpreter provides play-by-play for Page 2, and eventually Mayorga gets to the point -- he wants more money. Millions more.

Mayorga appeals to Oscar as a promoter, begging really, and Oscar reminds him he’s a fighter, although that’s a stretch if you watched him against Hopkins.

Oscar finally speaks, telling Mayorga this is between Mayorga and King, since King was paid $4 million, and it’s up to King how much he gives Mayorga.

He has already dispatched Mayorga without throwing a punch.

Oscar leads his team out of the dressing room to start the news conference with or without Mayorga. It’s still chaos except for the guy with the 44-beat heart rate, who gives me a grin backstage while holding his palms out -- and looking to his mother in heaven, he jokes, “Mama, why? Mama, why did you let Papa take me to the gym?” For the first time I begin to worry about the other guy.

*

KING CALLS Oscar’s people in the evening and tells them not to worry. There will be a fight. Oscar has gone to a private gym to work already knowing that. His work remains intense, but shorter. All his people applaud when he’s finished jumping rope, thankful I guess their meal ticket didn’t trip and hurt himself.

*

IT’S EARLIER in the day, and although Oscar admits he woke up a “little uptight,” thinking about the fight, he still gives Page 2 total access. I want to prod, though, to see just how uptight he is.

He begins telling a very tender story about his 4-month-old son, Oscar Gabriel, and how he has dedicated this fight to him, as if the baby has any idea.

“I just can’t lose because of him,” he says, and he explains how he looked at swatches of fabric so he could design the trunks that will carry his child’s name. He went with blue velvet, he says, and although he’s gotten as much as $300,000 before to wear a sponsor’s name, he’ll have only his son’s name in gold letters.

“Oscar on the front,” he says proudly, “and Gabriel on the back,” and he can see the look on my face, and he immediately understands.

“OK, so I’m trying to figure out which would be better for the photographers when I get knocked on my butt -- falling back so they see ‘Oscar,’ or falling on my face to get ‘Gabriel.’ What do you think? Maybe I should fall on my back and then kind of roll over so they get the whole name.”

Yeah, he’s uptight, all right.

*

HE’S SITTING in his “loft” suite at the MGM, two stories of modern art and luxury. His conditioning trainer, Rob Garcia, is cooking him an omelet with stuff no one else would eat. He also gets an avocado and grapefruit, and a mix of raspberry, blueberry, pineapple, rice protein, lecithin and liquid amino acid to drink.

He has been eating like this since Feb. 2, thinking about it, “but not once” going off Garcia’s menu. He weighs 151 for the 154-pound fight.

His wife and baby are in another suite, but a hallway away because a boxer needs to sleep, well, like a baby. They spend time together in the afternoon, and when the wife takes the baby shopping, he calls her. He worries like any other husband when his wife goes shopping.

He gets a manicure every Monday because he likes to feel clean. Then he tells me he has had time to catch up on his magazine reading, favoring Veranda. He says it has some really nice tips on home decoration. He also mentions one of his favorite movies, “The Notebook,” and groans while mentioning the last scene. It’s easy to understand now why he grew up having to defend himself.

*

HE HAS been in the MGM ring where he’ll fight Saturday. He likes it, he says. It has very little padding, which favors his speed. Shouldn’t my guy be complaining? I ask; Oscar says, “He should.”

But Mayorga’s mind is on money, and he’s probably counting on King to fix things, so to speak, which has me worried. USA Today has asked for a prediction, and I have Mayorga -- I tell Oscar -- taking him out in the fourth.

“If I get past the fourth, then it’s a victory,” Oscar says with great joy. “If I make it through the fourth -- you’ll see me hold up my fist and yell, ‘Yes!’ ”

Yeah, he’s uptight, all right.

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.