Columnist Dean Juipe: Augie has boxing fans on his side

Dean Juipe

Friday, Aug. 18, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

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

The knee-jerk reaction is to say he has no chance at all.

Augie Sanchez vs. Prince Naseem Hamed?

It's a two-round fight, right?

Well, maybe. We'll find out Saturday night when the diametrically opposed featherweights go at it in Ledyard, Conn., in a fight to be televised by HBO.

In one corner will be Sanchez, a lifelong Las Vegan and a still young 22. He's polite and cordial, a little on the shy side yet toughened by a few hard knocks from life and the sport he has lived and breathed since he was 5.

On the other side of the ring will be Hamed, 26, a Yemenite by way of England who is beyond-belief brash and a complete egomaniac. He's also a one-of-a-kind fighter, with a befuddling style that brings strong punches from multiple angles and directions.

He's 34-0 with a blistering 30 knockouts. And he's a 10-1 betting favorite in Las Vegas in spite of the inevitability of some local money coming in on his opponent.

Hamed has his picture on magazine covers and his image is splashed across colorful HBO ads. He's a major star.

But his grating personality -- which seems to be part schtick yet mostly authentic -- begs boxing fans to root against him. Many who follow the sport would be thrilled to see him knocked off his high horse and fail.

And it would be especially pleasing to have that failure come against a man who is his antithesis.

The contrast between the fighters even extends to those who surround them. Hamed has his equally bizarre brother as a manager, while Sanchez relies on his father-in-law, Metro cop Pat Barry, to serve as both his trainer and manager.

Barry is an unfailingly nice man and he and his wife, Dawn, have given thousands of hours of their time over the years to assist youngsters who have come to their attention either through the youth boxing program they run or through Pat's police connections.

Stack these factors on end and you get this result: Sanchez is a most endearing underdog in this particular fight.

Can he win it?

Perhaps. He's strong enough for the task, particularly given Hamed's suspect chin. He's also smart enough in that he varies his attack, works the body and appears increasingly polished, likely the result of Barry's tireless impact.

Sanchez is 26-1 with 23 knockouts, but it's a record that's borderline deceiving in that it can be argued that he has faced no more than two quality opponents -- Jorge Paez and Daniel Jimenez -- and that most of his foes took their beating and quietly jumped back on a bus to Mexico.

One such journeyman, Edgar Garcia, actually defeated Sanchez by first-round knockout in 1998 and that loss caused Top Rank -- which was promoting Sanchez at the time -- to cut him loose.

From those depths Sanchez has rebounded to marry into the Barry family, increase his intensity in the ring and rattle off 10 consecutive victories.

For a reward he gets $300,000 and the chance of a lifetime against a vaunted superstar.

He has said he expects to win and it would be delightful to see him do it.

Everyone in Las Vegas, if not everyone in boxing, has to feel the same.