De La Hoya looking for KO

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1997 | 9:55 a.m.

THE GAME within the game Saturday night will have Oscar De La Hoya not just looking to beat Hector Camacho, but looking to knock him out.

It's something no one has done before, Camacho having stepped into the ring 68 times as a professional fighter without ever having suffered the ignominy of a KO defeat.

De La Hoya says the streak, as such, will come to an end.

"My goal is to become the first man to ever knock him out," De La Hoya said. "It concerns me that he hasn't been knocked out, but my style now more than ever is banging. From now on I'm going out there looking to knock my opponent out."

He's so confident he can do it, he's even predicting the round.

"Seven," De La Hoya said. "I like the seventh round."

His new lead trainer, Emanuel Steward, has his own KO prediction. "Six," he offered, indirectly applying a little extra pressure on his own man.

De La Hoya, 25-0 with 21 knockouts, and Camacho, 64-3-1 with 32 KOs, will be paired at the Thomas & Mack Center with De La Hoya's World Boxing Council welterweight title at stake. About 4,000 tickets remain for the Top Rank-promoted card that will be available on pay per view outside Southern Nevada.

A win keeps De La Hoya on schedule for a Dec. 6 fight in New York with Wilfredo Rivera, as well as a series of bigger fights in 1998 likely to open with Terry Norris next spring in Las Vegas.

"I'm definitely fighting the big-time guys," De La Hoya said. "It's going to take time, but Norris, (Felix) Trinidad and (Ike) Quartey are all on my schedule.

"Norris will be a huge fight, one people will really want to see."

The fight with Camacho is one eliciting a certain degree of curiosity, in part because of the challenger's mixed reputation. A former world champion at 130 and 135 pounds, Camacho at 35 years old has steadily added weight in an effort to increase his strength -- and, perhaps, offset his image as a "runner."

But here he is slimming down to 147 pounds after fighting regularly at 154 and 160 in recent years.

"I think he's slower than he used to be," De La Hoya said. "As he's gotten bigger, he's put more pressure on his opponents. But his speed has decreased and that's good for me."

De La Hoya, 24, is being guaranteed $9 million for the bout, while Camacho is guaranteed $3 million. Each man will also share in the pay-per-view receipts above a contractual minimum.

Promoter Bob Arum is predicting buys in excess of 860,000, which would top the figure reached April 12 when De La Hoya met Pernell Whitaker at the T&M. "I think we really have a good shot at one million homes," Arum said.

Many of those one million will spring for the PPV with the hope De La Hoya can make good on his knockout prediction. Camacho, one of boxing's best known and most audacious bad boys, isn't much for being publicly humiliated, yet that's the risk he's taking in meeting a rising superstar like De La Hoya.

"He's a curious person with a unique style," De La Hoya said. "He's a southpaw, which makes him tough to fight. And he can talk.

"Thank God there's only one Hector Camacho."

Typically, Camacho has tried to get under De La Hoya's skin in the weeks leading up to the fight.

"It was ticking me off at first," De La Hoya said. "But then I realized that's not only what he does, it's what everybody I fight has been trying to do to me.

"I had to realize that getting mad wasn't doing me any good. So I'm laying back and waiting for the fight, and maybe trying to keep my anger in check until the bell rings."

Having added an offensive-minded trainer, De La Hoya is espousing the values of being a headhunter in the ring.

"I plan on putting a lot of pressure on Camacho," he said. "I mean, a lotta, lotta pressure. I'm more of an offensive fighter and I'm a more exciting fighter than I ever have been, so I'll be looking to show that against him.

"I want it to be an entertaining fight and the best way to do that would be to knock out someone who's never been knocked out."

Boxing notes

De La Hoya and Camacho will appear today in Los Angeles at a press conference promoting their fight before flying to Las Vegas. ... De La Hoya's likely spring opponent, Terry Norris, has a Wednesday fight in Las Vegas. He'll take on Adreas Arellano in the 10-round main event of a DirecTV card at the Aladdin. Norris, the WBC junior middleweight champion, is 46-6, while Arellano is 17-7-1. "With Oscar looking to fight me, every fight is tremendously important," said Norris, who will be fighting for the second time under promoter Bob Arum after leaving Don King. The hostility between Norris and King is such that each man has a lawsuit pending against the other, with Norris seeking $67 million. "I'm not afraid of King but I know a lot of fighters who are," Norris said. "He promises you things but once you start fighting everything changes. I don't know how I ever trusted him." ... There are six other bouts on the Wednesday card including one scheduled for 12 rounds at 135 pounds between Pete Taliaferro, 34-7, and Ahmed Santos, 19-1-3. The other primary undercard bout offers flyweights Eric Morel, 9-0, and Carlos Hernandez, 10-2, over eight rounds.