La Hoya

LAS VEGAS -- Without a trace of embarrassment, Oscar De La Hoya removes the crumpled food stamps from his wallet to show a group of boxing writers here for tomorrow night's super lightweight showdown with Julio Cesar Chavez at Caesars Palace."

The "Golden Boy" turned "Macho Man," and Oscar De La Hoya left the Thomas & Mack Arena late Friday night with the most satisfying victory of his meteoric ring career.Derided by some Mexican fans for preferring stylish boxing over brawling, the World Boxing Council welterweight champion proved he could slug with the best by forcing Julio Cesar Chavez to quit on his stool after eight electrifying rounds.Watching their once-invincible fighter spitting blood from a deep cut inside his mouth, Chavez's corner men tossed in the towel.

LAS VEGAS -- Invincible four-time world champion best fighter pound-for-pound. a boxing legend Mexico's favorite fighter.Guess who?No, not Oscar De La Hoya, but Julio Cesar Chavez, who had compiled an incredible record of 96-1-2 before his first encounter with De La Hoya in June 1996.But now all that seems like ancient history, and the roles have been dramatically reversed for their championship rematch here tonight.De La Hoya, 25, a perfect 28-0 and boasting titles in four different weight classes, has replaced Chavez as the world's best Latin fighter and probably the best fighter in the world.

BARCELONA, Spain -- Oscar de la Hoya thought his first-round lead would be 20-1.It was 2-1."I guess," he said, "the little zero kind of faded away."You never know with the new Olympic boxing scoring system, but de la Hoya rallied to clinch at least a bronze medal in the 132-pound division last night, defeating Bulgaria's Dimitrov Tontchev, 16-7.Chris Byrd, the United States' 165-pound hope, also won his quarterfinal fight, but 201-pound Danell Nicholson found the desperate offense of three-time world champion Felix Savon of Cuba too much and lost, 13-11.

LAS VEGAS - By going for the knockout mainly with his vaunted left hook, Oscar De La Hoya said he erred three years ago during his split-decision loss to Shane Mosley. "I fought like a robot," said De La Hoya, 30, who lost his welterweight crown to Mosley that night. "Round after round, I kept thinking I was going to get him - until the 12th. I ran out of time. "I'm not going to be the same fighter that faced him in 2000. It's going to be a different fight." That fight is tonight. A sellout crowd of 16,274 will pack the MGM Grand Hotel's Garden Arena to see Mosley try to take De La Hoya's World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association junior middleweight (154 pounds)

"Bad Blood" is good business. Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas don't like each other. They share the same heritage but are viewed in striking extremes by their Mexican-American brothers and sisters. De La Hoya is a man of worldly privilege. He is a pretty boy married to a beautiful singer, blessed with great crossover appeal among a professional boxing audience that includes swooning teenagers. Vargas is a spunky street fighter who rose from the badlands of Oxnard, Calif., to become a champion, and has never forgotten his Hispanic roots.

LAS VEGAS - Oscar De La Hoya can expect the biggest payday of his career for tomorrow night's fight against Bernard Hopkins, but De La Hoya already is wealthy. What De La Hoya really wants is to enrich his legacy. He sees the fight as a means of silencing critics who are skeptical of his heart, his stamina and his place among boxing's all-time greats. "It doesn't get any bigger than this - fighting for the undisputed middleweight crown against the best fighter out there who hasn't lost in [11]

Late fight: Last night's middleweight title bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins ended too late to be included in this edition. A complete report can be found in later editions or on the Internet at www.baltimoresun.com. LAS VEGAS - Oscar De La Hoya still was scheduled to fight Bernard Hopkins last night, despite an incident Wednesday night in which a trainer's scissors gouged a cut just above the palm of De La Hoya's oft-injured left hand following a workout. The injury, initially reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal yesterday, was made known to Nevada Athletic Commission chairman Marc Ratner following Friday's weigh-in at the MGM Grand Arena because De La Hoya is taking pain killers that might appear in his post-fight urinalysis.

For the nearly 20 months since losing to Bernard Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya has enjoyed the life of a man whose ring earnings have surpassed $100 million. Teaming with Hopkins, the former eight-belt world champion has launched Golden Boy Promotions, enlisting names such as Marco Antonio Barrera and Shane Mosley into the stable of fighters he now promotes. And with his wife, Millie, a former Puerto Rican singer, De La Hoya has a 4-month-old son. "Life has been awesome," De La Hoya told Jay Leno during a Monday interview on The Tonight Show, when he also shared that his son kept him up "for all but two hours" the night before, that changing dirty diapers can be a hassle, and that Millie's shedding of ringside tears at tense moments "can be a distraction."

LOS ANGELES -- The boyz in the hood of East L.A. watch over boxer Oscar de la Hoya. They're his friends, his ex-classmates and his fans. They follow his career and yell "Rocky" and "Mike Tyson" as he passes by.But last February, while going to a store near his home, de la Hoya walked straight into a gang roadblock. He was held up at gunpoint by three men, who took his wallet and a camera."Two hours later, the wallet came back to my home with nothing missing," he said. "I guess they knew who I was."