DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997                TAG: 9704130180

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson

DATELINE: LAS VEGAS                         LENGTH:   70 lines

FIGHT NIGHT PARTY: TRICK IS KNOWING WHEN TO LEAVE

Pernell Whitaker entered the Thomas & Mack Center at about a quarter to six local time Saturday, a couple hours before showtime. It is the basketball arena that Tark the Shark and his Runnin' Rebels built, before coach Jerry left Nevada-Las Vegas with an NCAA posse close behind.

Just as Vegas is where dreams come to die and nest eggs to fly, Thomas & Mack is where basketball opponents used to come to lose without fail.

Nobody needed to tell Whitaker that. He is a basketball nut who, but for the slight drawback of about six inches in height, would have gladly traded his boxing gloves for a point guard's high-tops years ago.

It was the place for hoops. But Whitaker and his crew's quick entrance through a loading dock door signaled it was the time to fight, to finally settle this much-hyped pound-for-pound dialogue between him and Oscar De La Hoya.

Except on even an average night, Tark and his merry band used to do more business than Whitaker and De La Hoya, amazingly, drummed up Saturday night. Somewhere, despite the best efforts of promoter Bob Arum's hype machine and the rambling soliloquies of Whitaker and trainer Lou Duva, the message got lost on the entertainment-flooded people of Vegas.

Oh, the crowd was stunning enough with its jewels, tans, Armanis, Donna Karans and cleavage, the type of patronage to which the Thomas & Mack Center is accustomed. But the commoners have their price, and it apparently isn't $1,000 face-value tickets on down to a low of $100 for a seat in what is regarded as a lousy house to watch boxing.

For a building that holds about 20,000 for a fight, ticket sales on Saturday morning were way below projections, somewhere around 13,000, even though the undercard featured that phenomenal four-round fatso Butterbean (who won again).

Still, the usual celebrity suspects limoed in: Bruce Willis; Sylvester Stallone; Don Johnson and Cheech Marin from ``Tin Cup,'' though Kevin Costner was a late scratch; old buddies Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson; the washed-up Randall Cunningham, who just stole a contract from the born-yesterday Minnesota Vikings; Willie Nelson, on the road again; a ravishing Kirstie Alley, clearly on a diet again; Cuba Gooding Jr., showing (off) his ``Jerry McGuire'' money; and TV Superman Dean Cain. Local boy Andre Agassi and Brooke apparently sent their regrets.

Say what you will about big-time boxing, it knows how to put on a party. Whether it was Whitaker's last Vegas dance before he bows to the inevitability of time and his chiropractor-tweaked back, though, is anybody's guess.

Nobody from Main Events, the management group that adopted Whitaker after he won the 1984 Olympic gold medal, is saying, though the week was heavy on reminiscing from Whitaker's side.

That stay-or-go call always falls to the boxer anyway, though most delay it interminably. And the 33-year-old Whitaker may be no better or worse than the other guy when it comes to pulling the plug on the precious thing that has given him fame and wealth.

But Dino Duva of Main Events made a point this week to comment on what a delight it's been to deal with Whitaker for 13 years.

``We are a family,'' Duva said. ``No one has been more important to this family than Pernell Whitaker. He's the president of our family. His relationship with us goes a lot further than business and boxing.

``It's personal. He's meant more to us than anybody else, and I just want to publicly say what a pleasure it's been - an honor - to work with Pernell Whitaker all these years. He's a class guy. He's a one-of-a-kind.''

Now, if that wasn't a have-a-nice-life convocation speech, it sounded pretty close. Still, Whitaker's well-documented motivation problems notwithstanding, he's got a family of his own, four boys. And just maybe that's the real motivation he needs to keep walking into arenas with a tagalong cast.

``The Air Jordans they want cost $100-something,'' Whitaker said, ``so I'll be fighting till I'm 40.''

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