Lopez in a tough position

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Oct. 16, 1997 | 11:28 a.m.

Twelve years in the game, with only six losses in 43 fights, and there's still plenty of room on Hector Lopez's mantel.

Well, it's cluttered a bit, Lopez having won five minor titles.

But that special spot, the one reserved for a photo of him proudly displaying a world-championship belt, sits empty, a vacant reminder of a career that remains somewhat unfulfilled.

"It bothers me," Lopez admitted Wednesday. "I'm in a tough position: I'm a little too good for my own good."

That assessment is 90 percent accurate, maybe 10 percent braggadocio. The fact is, Lopez, at the age of 30, is easily one of the better junior welterweights in the world, albeit one who has had only a single crack at a major title.

"Maybe I need to get a promoter who's really behind me," he said, although Forum Boxing keeps him busy and has him headlining its Saturday card at the Tropicana. He's fighting in the 12-round main event against Angel Beltre on a card to be televised to Southern California.

"You know me, I tell it like it is," Lopez said, continuing his Forum Boxing diatribe. "It doesn't seem like they go out of the way for me some times. Maybe they even take advantage of me."

He said he would consider signing with a rival promoter if it would lead to a shot at a legitimate title.

"I'd go to Don King if he could do it," Lopez said. "But I'd want to sit down and hear it from him, face to face."

Lopez, 36-6-1 and a winner of eight of his last nine fights, has been mentioned as a possible opponent for Miguel Angel Gonzalez with the vacant World Boxing Council 140-pound championship at stake. Gonzalez, who defeated Lopez on points in 1993 with the WBC lightweight title on the line, is in need of an opponent after his proposed fight with Julio Cesar Chavez was indefinitely postponed following an injury to Chavez.

"There's been some talk about it but he's a hard guy to get into the ring," Lopez said. "He may have beaten me at 135 but that's not my weight. At 140, he doesn't stand a chance."

In the likely event Gonzalez fails to call, Lopez will turn his sights to IBF champ Vince Phillips.

"We talked," Lopez said. "He has to fight Freddie Pendleton first, but he's the only one who sounds like he has the (moxie) to fight me. The rest of them are scared, plain and simple."

Saturday at the Trop, Lopez will look to repeat the strong showing he gave there July 26 when he decisioned Mark Lewis. His opponent, Beltre, is 31 years old and owns a 26-6 record as well as six consecutive wins.

"He's decent but if he has two hands and weighs 140 pounds, he has to go," Lopez said. "I have to win and make the best of my situation."