If There’s Any Pressure, He’s Not Letting It Show

Dear Diary -- Could I be wrong about whose butt gets kicked?

LAS VEGAS -- Oscar De La Hoya’s cook drops a plate of pasta with organic vodka sauce in front of the boxer after Oscar’s weigh-in at 153 1/2 pounds, and with the freedom now to eat as much as he wants, Oscar exclaims, “This is what it’s all about.”

I’m leaning more to the $8 million and the $22.50 for each of the anticipated 700,000 HBO pay-per-views purchased that he’ll get for taking on Ricardo Mayorga tonight at MGM.

But then the cook puts a bowl of the same pasta in front of Page 2, and Oscar takes notice. If looks could kill, some of you people would be happy today.

The cook assures him he won’t have to fight for a second helping, while also putting a spinach salad, two lamb shanks and steamed vegetables before him.

Oscar’s been talking about the green mint jelly that accompanies the lamb for hours, and he brings it up again. I don’t understand Spanish, so I have no idea what Mayorga is talking about, but it still sounds more interesting.

*

OSCAR BEGINS weigh-in day by sleeping in, followed by a massage, stretching and 12 acupuncture needles in his back. He will get 12 more in his arms later.

He will eat more lamb for dinner, his blood tests showing his body likes it. His final meal before the fight will be a peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwich on rye. “It gives me great energy,” he says, and what have the Lakers got to lose?

He will have his wife, Millie, buy him several magazines such as the Robb Report, Florida Design and Showboats to get through the evening until going to bed at 8:30. A wild Friday night in Las Vegas.

He lights up at the mention of the yachting magazine, though, and he says he’s the captain of his own 74-footer, although after meeting Millie, I can’t imagine him being in charge of anything.

“I call it the ‘Tommy Crown,’ in honor of my favorite movie, ‘The Thomas Crown Affair,’ ” he says, while adding he’s not an ocean guy and doesn’t know how to swim. But when it comes to docking a giant boat, he’s a natural.

The pay-per-view crew arrives for a 30-minute briefing with Oscar, and HBO’s Larry Merchant wants to know if it’s true he’ll renew his wedding vows after the fight.

“We’ll have Elvis there,” Oscar confirms.

“An Elvis impersonator?” Merchant asks, apparently unaware that the real one is already busy.

Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Golden Boy Promotions, takes a call from Don King. King wants $100,000, and Schaefer tells him to have a nice day. Hair gel around here apparently is expensive.

Oscar, meanwhile, is showing off the trunks that Millie gave him for the weigh-in. They are bright red with a teddy bear stitched to the front and “Who’s your teddy?” across the back. I’d like to see the look on Mayorga’s face.

“But I think I’m going to go with my Dolce & Gabbana tailored swimming suit,” Oscar says, and did I mention that, in addition to the manicure he receives each week, he also gets a pedicure?

Oscar picks blue and gold boxing gloves from a bag full of choices because they match his blue velvet trunks. The contract between Mayorga and Oscar calls for Reyes gloves, as opposed to the soft cushion of Everlast gloves.

“I prefer Reyes,” Oscar says, “because it’s a knockout glove.”

*

OSCAR AND Millie are sitting in the MGM Arena dressing room waiting for the weigh-in. Millie mentions her first meeting with Oscar, saying she knew of Trinidad, because he was big in Puerto Rico, but knowing only of Oscar, “he fights, and is some guy named Hoya. He was a gorgeous man, but that didn’t do anything for me.”

Oscar spends a year trying to have Millie join him for coffee. “If he says tequila, I might think about it,” she jokes.

“Honey, can you wait outside?” Oscar cracks, and I wonder if there’s any tension in Mayorga’s dressing room.

There is some talk about the Lakers, Game 7 and Oscar’s good fortune that the game will start at 5:30, allowing fans to catch the bout around 8. He thinks he’s blessed, mentioning for the first time that he survived a serious accident last month.

“It was a scary moment,” he says. “I fell through the ropes in Puerto Rico, out of the ring and to the cement five feet below. I landed on my face. I was fortunate my headgear cushioned the fall and I didn’t land on the back of my head and crack my skull. I was dizzy, and had tests at the hospital.”

Millie makes a sour face at the recollection. She’ll be sitting ringside, but will “pray more,” she says, than watch the fight.

When the weigh-in begins, Millie places her arm through mine for support, and it’s ice cold. She’s overwhelmed, she says, watching Mayorga step on the scale, the realization settling in -- this guy is going to try to beat up her husband.

“I just want to go home and hug my baby,” she says.

*

IT’S ALL over now except for the eating and fighting. Oscar has been good to his word, allowing total access behind the scenes to The Times, including a seat tonight in his dressing room.

He tells me his round-by-round strategy to beat Mayorga. There’s lots of talk about hitting Mayorga in the body rather than the face. He won’t dance away. He’ll use his right hand. And then he tells his wife, he just wants to get past the fourth round -- out of nowhere delivering a sucker punch after the earlier prediction here that Mayorga will take him out in the fourth.

I know this. If he handles Mayorga as well as Page 2, he eventually wins.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.