VAZQUEZ-MARQUEZ HAS PUNCH.

Byline: ROBERT MORALES

BOXING

Israel Vazquez will defend his World Boxing Council super bantamweight belt against the vicious Rafael Marquez on March3 at Home Depot Center in Carson.

Vazquez, of Huntington Park via Mexico City, has been in plenty of dangerous fights during his fine career. But this one figures to be the most hazardous, as Marquez is in the top 10 of most respected pound-for- pound polls. Marquez, a longtime bantamweight champion, is moving up in weight, but his knockout ratio makes one expect he will have no problem carrying his power up a weight class. He is 36-3 with 32 knockouts.

All that said, there is a chance Vazquez will be in the fight of his life without his Hall of Fame trainer, Freddie Roach. Roach, who trains Vazquez out of the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, is scheduled to leave March 1 with the rest of Team De La Hoya to Puerto Rico, where Roach will train De La Hoya for his May 5 mega fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas.

Vazquez was asked about the scenario before a news conference Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles promoting his fight.

"He (Roach) formally told us that he is going to be there, that he is going to be in my corner," said Vazquez, co-promoted by De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and Sycuan Ringside Promotions.

Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy, sang a different tune. He said the plan right now is for all of Team De La Hoya to leave for camp in Puerto Rico the day after a Feb. 28 Los Angeles news conference that will complete a long De La Hoya-Mayweather press tour.

"I have to talk to Oscar and see what his plans are," Schaefer said. "Maybe he (Roach) stays for the fight. I can't really answer you one way or another. It's an Oscar issue. If Oscar wants to start camp on the first (of March), with the whole team flying back together, then, you know..."

Yes, we know. That means Roach won't be in Vazquez's corner unless De La Hoya says he can stay. Told about this, Vazquez expressed cautious optimism.

"I hope Oscar understands that this is a big fight for us," Vazquez said. "I belong to his company. I also have to prepare. I think this fight is a big fight for the company, for everybody. I hope he will understand and let Freddie stay with me that night."

Frank Espinoza of West Covina is Vazquez's longtime manager. He expressed concern that Vazquez might be without Roach for Mexico City's Marquez, who is going to be an extremely tough nut to crack.

A win over Marquez would no doubt make Vazquez a top-10, pound-for-pound fighter.

"Here you have a Golden Boy fighter in Israel Vazquez," Espinoza said. "Why wouldn't they let him (Roach) stay?"

Should Roach not make the fight, he will most likely be replaced by Justin Fortune, his assistant at Wild Card.

"I guess Israel feels OK with him," Espinoza said Wednesday.

Reached Friday, Espinoza said there had been nothing new to report. Roach did not return two phone calls.

Showtime will televise Vazquez-Marquez as well as the main undercard fight between International Boxing Federation flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan and challenger Victor Burgos. The tickets at Home Depot Center will begin at $25, which is about the best bargain in town considering Vazquez-Marquez should be a slugfest from start to finish. That's all these two know.

Moreover, it's almost a rarity these days to see two top-of-the-line knockout punchers square off with each other. As lead promoter Gary Shaw said, we'll see the best fighter (Marquez) in the world at 118 pounds facing the best at 122.

"These guys get paid," said Shaw, who promotes Marquez. "If they want the sport to grow, they should take tough fights."

Vazquez (41-3, 30 KOs) and Marquez proclaimed themselves ready, willing and able to give fans a fight to remember. They did so in eerie fashion.

"I am going to give my life, if possible, to win this fight," said Marquez, 31.

"Like Rafael said, we are willing to die in the ring if that's what it takes to win that fight," said Vazquez, 29.

This has fight of the year written all over it.

Goossen, Arum take deals to court

Let the lawsuits begin.

Last week, the Daily News reported that contracts had been signed for Antonio Margarito to defend his World Boxing Organization welterweight belt against Paul "The Punisher" Williams.

No date was set, but Dan Goossen, who promotes Williams and won the purse bid to market this fight, said it would be held in either May or June in Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

Bob Arum, who promotes Margarito, said that he has an exclusive contract with Margarito and his boxer had no business signing to fight Williams, or anyone else, without his permission, especially since Margarito had verbally agreed to fight Miguel Cotto for his World Boxing Association welterweight title.

Arum threatened to take Margarito, his co-managers Sergio Diaz and Francisco Espinosa, and Goossen Tutor Promotions to court over the matter. Arum kept his promise and filed a lawsuit against all of the above parties this week in Nevada.

Goossen, in turn, filed a countersuit Wednesday in Puerto Rico against Arum and the Puerto Rico-based WBO after the governing body said it would not sanction Margarito-Williams until court proceedings were complete.

"Bob Arum is operating in a very disingenuous manner in failing to comply with the same WBO rules that he specifically requested be applied to this same WBO champion in December of last year," Goossen said in a statement.

The Top Rank-WBO agreement enabled Margarito to defend his title against a lower-ranked Joshua Clottey instead of the WBO's No. 1 mandatory contender -- Williams -- provided the winner next defended the title against Williams.

"The representation made by Top Rank stated that Margarito would next defend against Williams, and now Arum is attempting to circumvent this agreement and the WBO rules by disregarding the very rules he has abided by for many years as a WBO-licensed promoter," Goossen said.

Arum, reached Friday via telephone in England, where he was hosting a news conference to announce the junior welterweight showdown between Ricky Hatton and Jose Luis Castillo on June 23 at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, said this is now "for the courts to decide. If the issue can't be resolved, the courts will sort everything out."

Arum said that not only had Margarito agreed to fight another one of his fighters in Cotto, but that Margarito's managers told him not to enter the purse bid for the Williams fight because of that.

"Goossen Tutor (Promotions) can have a dozen purse bids, but they still can't go ahead with it," Arum said. "If Margarito's people had told us that they were willing to go ahead with the Williams fight, we would have either tried to negotiate a deal, put a purse bid in, but what happened here was unconscionable.

"This can certainly be rectified very easily by everybody saying, 'Oh, look, this happened, it was unfortunate, so let's do another purse bid.' I mean, that would be the fair thing."

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Israel Vazquez, left, defends his WBC super bantamweight title against Rafael Marquez, right, on March 3 at Home Depot Center.

Photo left, Ethan Miller/Getty Images; Photo right, Al Bello/Getty Images

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