Columnist Dean Juipe: De La Hoya fesses up: He’s a flawed fighter … and a liar

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Sept. 2, 1999 | 10:13 a.m.

Dean Juipe's boxing notebook appears Thursday. His sports column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 259-4084 or juipe@lasvegassun.com

Oscar De La Hoya used the occasion to come clean and make a few honest admissions.

Speaking on a national conference call Wednesday to promote his Sept. 18 welterweight showdown with Felix Trinidad at Mandalay Bay, De La Hoya confessed that he isn't always fully motivated and that he's essentially a one-handed fighter. He also said he intentionally gives divergent answers to questions regarding his strategy and that anything he may say on the subject can't be trusted.

"Whatever comes out of my mouth about boxing strategy ... it's all a lie," he said with a chuckle. "Nobody really knows what I'm going to do in that ring, so for me to say different things is a matter of confusing my opponent. To me, that's playing it smart."

He's obviously motivated for the fight with Trinidad, although he said that hasn't always been the case in previous fights.

"It depends on the fight," De La Hoya said. "I don't disagree at all (that sometimes he's not motivated). For this one, a major event, I'm hungry once again. This fight made me refocus. I feel like the hungry fighter I was a few years ago."

De La Hoya, 31-0, is no longer the betting favorite for the fight. At the Mandalay Bay sports book this week, both he and Trinidad, who is 35-0, were listed at a minus 120. Earlier, De La Hoya was a minus 140 while Trinidad was a plus 110.

"He can't box, he's not a boxer," De La Hoya said of what he expects from the IBF champion. "He either has to put a lot of pressure on me or wait to counter."

De La Hoya, the WBC champion, responded to a question about a failure to use his right hand during fights by saying "Yeah, I'm a one-handed fighter. It's been proven in the past, my right hand doesn't really serve me. It's just there."

He also said he would listen to his corner, which is something he hasn't always done during the course of a fight.

"The importance of this fight is too great not to listen to my corner," he said. "I haven't always listened in the past, but this time I'll play it smart."

* HE DOESN'T LIKE IKE: Undefeated heavyweight Ike Ibeabuchi remains incarcerated in Las Vegas on sexual assault charges and is facing a Sept. 9 arraignment in District Court before judge Joseph Bonaventure. Ibeabuchi, a native of Nigeria, is 20-0 as a fighter and was being prominently featured on the cable network HBO.

But HBO's Lou DiBella says he's done with Ibeabuchi and he feels the man has some serious problems beyond the charges and the potential life-prison sentence he's facing in Las Vegas.

"He's a tragic figure," DiBella said this week. "I think he's deeply disturbed and I think he's sick. I feel bad for him but I'd already lost confidence that we could work with this guy any longer after he turned down a lot of money ($1 million) to fight Jeremy Williams."

DiBella said he became convinced Ibeabuchi was dangerous during a lunch earlier this summer in New York City. At that informal meeting, Ibeabuchi waved a steak knife toward DiBella and demanded to be paid in the $10 million range for his fights and refused to discuss such trivialities as where he lived.

"It doesn't shock me that Ike is in trouble with the law," DiBella said. "In extended dealings with him, his problems were obvious to me. He's very volatile and not stable. He's paranoid and he's difficult to even talk to, let alone get through to."

Ibeabuchi, 26, was arrested July 22 after allegedly assaulting a call girl in a hotel room at The Mirage. The 6-foot-2, 240-pound Ibeabuchi has been unable to post a bail that was raised to $3 million after he caused a disturbance in jail Aug. 8.

"The guy is nuts," DiBella said. "Even if he's able to get past these legal problems, I don't see how he's going to advance his life. Right now I don't think the outlook is too good for him."

* NORRIS READY: Dressed nicely and approachable as always, Orlin Norris sat quietly near ringside for last Monday's fight card at the Hard Rock. In line for a fight with Mike Tyson that has yet to be formally announced, Norris declined to discuss Tyson yet said he was getting himself ready for a bout that's tentative for Oct. 23 at the MGM Grand Garden.

"I've been working out for about a month and a half (in Lubbock, Texas)," Norris said. "I went right back into the gym after my last fight, so I feel like I've been fighting right along."

Norris, 33, last fought June 26 in London when he flattened someone named Pele Reid in one round. Norris, a former cruiserweight world champion, is 50-5-1 with 26 knockouts.

The delay in announcing the fight is seemingly the result of Tyson's reluctance to commit or his concern about carrying too much weight. The former heavyweight champion last fought Jan. 16, when he knocked out Frans Botha in the fifth round at the MGM.

He weighed 223 pounds for that fight but reports indicate his weight increased significantly during a brief prison term that was the result of a plea on assault charges.

Norris, who will receive $800,000 if and when his fight with Tyson comes off, said the chance to fight Tyson "is a blessing" that didn't completely take him by surprise.

"I always knew in the back of my mind that someday, somehow, I'd get another chance at a big fight like this," Norris said. "You can believe things like that in boxing because it's a business where one minute you can be in obscurity and the next minute the whole public knows who you are."

Maybe after the fight is announced Norris will become better known than he is, because the Hard Rock crowd greeted his introduction with what amounted to complete indifference. Only a handful of people applauded.

* QUICK HITS: A fight that was initially scheduled for August and then has bounced around in pursuit of a site has finally found one, as Will Grigsby's IBF junior flyweight title defense against Ricardo Lopez will be held Oct. 2 at the Las Vegas Hilton. ... Las Vegas resident Livingstone Bramble was to have fought Theo Holland last weekend in Atlanta but he pulled out of the bout when the contract weight was set at 142 pounds. Bramble, more comfortable at 147, was disappointed although he said he has an Oct. 2 fight with Jerry Smith in Georgia. "I was thinking about retirement until I got this other offer," Bramble said. ... Promoter Don King is in the process of initiating an Only In America clothing line. ... Heavyweight Ed Mahone, who frequently fights in Las Vegas and is 21-0-2, has accepted an Oct. 9 fight in Germany with the 25-0 Vitali Klitschko.

Montell Griffin, who trained in Las Vegas for his fight last weekend in Germany with Dariusz Michalczewski, was knocked out in the fourth round by a man making the 16th defense of his minor title. Michalczewski wants to fight Roy Jones next year. ... Heavyweight Michael Grant and Andrew Golota apparently will tangle Nov. 20 at the site yet to be determined. ... A correction: Jennifer Borquez, 13, recently became the first female Nevada resident to win a national Junior Golden Gloves championship. She was misidentified in this space last week. ... Floyd Mayweather has risen to a minus 1500 favorite at the Mandalay Bay sports book for his Sept. 11 fight at the same site with Carlos Gerena. Mayweather opened at a minus 1200. Gerena, once plus 800, is now plus 1000.