Poor HBO.

The self-proclaimed network of champions does so much business with Oscar De La Hoya -- it has essentially propped up his company, Golden Boy Promotions, with all the dates it provides him -- that you think in its time of need HBO could have borrowed his Golden suitcase.

You know the Golden suitcase. It's the one De La Hoya filled with $250,000 worth of $20 bills and took to Los Angeles International Airport one day last summer.

He had it with him the day he made like Don King and tried to get super featherweight Manny Pacquiao to sign a promotional contract by flashing piles of cash.

Pacquiao, De La Hoya undoubtedly had to know, loves to gamble. Giving all that loot to a guy who gambles and rips through money as quickly as Pacquiao does flies in the face of all the self-righteous pablum Golden Boy spews about its commitment to boxers and changing the way business in the sport is conducted.

Pacquiao is one of boxing's most valuable commodities because of his reckless fighting style and engaging smile. He's box-office gold, which is why two of boxing's giants, Golden Boy and Top Rank, are engaged in a nasty legal dispute over his rights.

Had Golden Boy truly cared about the fighter, it wouldn't have dispatched De La Hoya to the airport with a contract and a suitcase stuffed with cash to stick in Pacquiao's nose seconds after he got off a 15-hour flight from the Philippines.

Maybe you meet him at the airport, take him to dinner and set up a meeting for later when he's rested, refreshed and can negotiate the most important deal of his life with a clear head.

What you don't do is ambush him with a contract -- and remember, English is Pacquiao's second language -- and try to steal a signature when he had to be bleary-eyed from the long flight.

And you don't give him cash -- far less an amount than he would command were it on the open market and not in the back of a limousine -- and thus make it easy for him to blow it in a casino.

If De La Hoya had been thinking, he would have loaned the contents of that Golden suitcase to HBO, which came about a quarter of a million short of landing the WBC super bantamweight title fight between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez that airs tonight on Showtime.

That fight is so clearly superior to HBO's main event tonight of Miguel Cotto against Oktay Urkal for the WBA welterweight title, it shouldn't have taken HBO vice president Kery Davis more than 30 seconds to know which direction to go.

Promoter Gary Shaw was shopping the Vazquez-Marquez fight and, sensitive to the perception that he's overly close with Showtime, was committed to selling it to HBO.

But HBO lowballed Shaw and wound up blowing the deal. It ended up with Cotto-Urkal, which will be the type of one-sided blowout that has become an HBO staple, while Vazquez-Marquez figures to be a fierce, compelling drama -- perhaps the Corrales-Castillo of 2007.

HBO at least had the sense to add a fun middleweight bout to its undercard by landing Edison Miranda against Allan Green. But Showtime has an interesting opener as well, featuring IBF flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan against Victor Burgos.

It's mind-boggling how consistently Showtime's offerings drub HBO's. But what makes HBO's failure to land Vazquez-Marquez so astounding isn't that it essentially paid double for the Cotto card what Showtime paid for the Vazquez card, but that HBO didn't use De La Hoya to help land the better fight.

Golden Boy -- whose executives have frequently criticized Shaw for promoting on Showtime but who need to be called out themselves as they never have been the lead promoters on any premium cable network other than HBO -- is the co-promoter of Vazquez.

Showtime, as is frequently the case, is offering the better product tonight.

The irony is that De La Hoya, who has been so closely tied to HBO throughout his career, undoubtedly will have his television at home in Puerto Rico tuned to Showtime tonight.

That's no surprise, though. The Golden Boy knows a real fight when he sees it.

Kevin Iole's boxing column is published Saturday. He can be reached at 396-4428 or kiole@reviewjournal.com.