Can I have a sip of that stuff?

Yory Boy Campas isn’t a warm-up for Oscar De La Hoya as much as he’s a break in the monotony, a little million-dollar side trip on the short road leading to what’s left of De La Hoya’s career.

You can’t really say Campas doesn’t have a chance against De La Hoya on May 3 in Las Vegas because Buster Douglas never had a chance and Hasim Rahman never had a chance. Guys who don’t have a chance, occasionally do.

Still, the secret to this fight might be the special native potion Yory Boy has been guzzling. Given to him by a tribal shaman, it’s supposed to make him into some kind of zombie superman. Unfortunately, what Yory Boy really needs against De La Hoya is a Sammy Sosa autographed Louisville Slugger bat.

Even promoter Bob Arum knows this fight needs a boost, something to help it through the night. He heard about Yory Boy‘s special potion and saw an opportunity to give the fight a jump start. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Arum came up with the whole potion story himself.

“Hello Yory Boy? This is Bob Arum…Arum…A-r-u-m….Bob…Say listen. We‘re in a little trouble here. Ticket sales are lagging, no one’s buying pay-per-view and even the sports books aren’t giving odds on your fight. We need to do something, give fans a reason to buy this fight because….Hey, wait a minute. I’ve got an idea. We need to make you a viable opponent for Oscar, right? And how do we do that? With a magical potion given to you by a medicine man or a drummer or….I know, I know. We‘ll make the guy a shaman. Yeah, that‘s it. We‘ll make him a tribal shaman, one of those crazy witch doctors. We’ll tell the press he slipped you some special potion that makes you, ah, let’s see….It makes you…I know. It gives you unbelievable strength and energy for the fight. Yeah, that will work. This will be great. Watch pay-per-view sales now. They’re gonna soar. That’s what’s great about fight fans. They’ll believe anything.”

If Arum didn’t make the whole story up, he should give a bonus to whoever did.

“What worries me,” Arum said in a conference call this week, “is the undisputable fact that in 1862, 300 Indians with wooden spears and machetes took on the crack army of 2000 French troops. They killed over 1,000 troops and routed the rest of them. They were given a potion – apparently the same potion that the shaman gave Yory Boy. That’s a fact. What that all means, I don’t know.”

What that all means, Bob, is that this fight couldn’t stand on its own two skinny legs, so you tossed in a pair of crutches.

To add to the color, Arum claimed to have taken a sip of the special native brew on Wednesday at a public workout for Campas in San Diego.

Arum said it had a “really sweet taste.”

Even Oscar had to learn a few lines for the spoof.

Asked if the potion concerned him, De La Hoya said you bet your mama’s fresh apple pie it concerns him “Because fighters are trying to do anything to beat me,” De La Hoya said. “We all know about Fernando Vargas (see “steroids, Vargas”) and now when I heard that Yory Boy Campas took something, of course it worried me.”

Arum must love this guy.

“And it takes me out of my game plan,” De La Hoya went on, “because it’s my life in the ring and I don’t want any fighter going up against me to have an advantage.”

Don’t worry, Oscar. They won’t let him use the Louisville Slugger.