Use kid gloves with Mayweather

LAS VEGAS —  Who wins Saturday’s fight between Oscar and the little shrimp? The kids do.

LAS VEGAS -- Five minutes beyond, “Hello,” and the little shrimp and I aren’t hitting it off. OK, maybe three minutes.

His manager, Leonard Ellerbe, says Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn’t one to be teased, and of course around here everybody gets teased, so I’m teasing the little shrimp and he’s yelling, “Leonard, Leonard,” like he can’t fight his own fights.

Leonard has already told me, “I haven’t said this to anyone else, but I think this is going to be Floyd’s easiest fight.” He obviously isn’t talking about Page 2.

“Oscar is finished,” Leonard says, and that’s what I’ve been telling him.

But I’m curious to see what Mayweather is made of, tell him so, and he begins to cover up. I tell him he’s getting at least $10 million for fighting Oscar and 30% of the pay-per-view take, while Oscar gets $23 million and 70%.

“Oscar’s the draw for this fight,” I say.

“Leonard, Leonard,” and the little shrimp is yelling. “Who told you that? Who told you that?”

Before he walks off, I tell him Oscar has just seen the cover of Sports Illustrated. Oscar has never made the cover of SI, and he’s disappointed, “15 years, big event after big event, and I have to share it with someone.”

He feels better when someone reminds him of the SI cover jinx. “Maybe it’s good he’s on it, too,” Oscar says.

“Have you seen the cover?” I ask the little shrimp, and he says he hasn’t, so I tell him, “Well there’s a big picture of Oscar, and you’re the little guy way in the back.” I’ve had shorter interviews, but not many.

Mayweather returns to get his hands taped. He starts complaining the media is always asking the same questions, so I say, “Here’s one for you. Are you afraid of losing? You scared?” and he looks at me like my father-in-law the night I told him I was taking his daughter to the drive-in.

I tell him some folks expect him to get decked by Oscar’s left hand. Behind me I feel someone tugging at my shirt, telling me later they saw the look in the little shrimp’s eyes -- afraid he might take a swing at me and you know how that would go.

And then who would be left to fight Oscar on Saturday?

“Look me in the eyes; I’ll give you $1,000 in cash if I lose,” Mayweather says, and I tell him, I’ll give it to Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

“You’re helping out the kids,” I tell him, and he doesn’t get it.

“When I win, though,” Mayweather says, “you have to write in the newspaper, ‘I’m the greatest fighter ever.’ ”

I can do that. We can always run a correction later.

I tell Oscar later about Mayweather’s $1,000 offer, and he says, “I’ll give the hospital $10,000 if I lose.” He gets it.

MAYWEATHER ENTERS the ring, starts throwing punches at Roger Mayweather without looking at his trainer. Instead, he’s turned his head to stare at me. I can see we’re bonding.

A fat man wearing padding across his belly is walking around the ring and allowing the little shrimp to pepper him with punches. Mayweather yells something like, “hate you,” with every punch, and you don’t think the guy doesn’t already hate himself for being fat?

Now he’s yelling at me about Oscar’s left, the one that’s going to knock him flat. He’s showing me how he’s going to block it. Reminds me of how rattled Jose Guillen used to get.

While we were talking earlier, I tell him Oscar has a right hand now, and I really don’t know if he does or doesn’t, but the little shrimp bites. “I’m scared,” he says, which surprises me, because I thought he might start yelling, “Leonard, Leonard.”

For a few seconds, though, I think he’s getting it and rolling with the jabs until I tell him he lacks the strength to throw a knockout punch. Well, no reason for him to prove differently at this time.

Later I run into Leonard, and mention Mayweather seemed to be getting it, but not before getting pretty fired up. “He can handle it,” Leonard says. “He’s a big boy.”

“Well, not really,” I tell him. “He’s really pretty small.”

BY THIS time I’ve already told Oscar he has the perfect body for a knockout. His own.

You see the back of his head is flat. He could lean against a wall and it’d be a perfect flat fit. His hairstylist, and yes, he has had a makeup/hairstylist for 15 years, spends a good deal of time tugging at the hairs on the back of Oscar’s head to make his noggin appear rounded.

When his son was born a little more than a year ago, his wife, Millie, had doctors take X-rays to see if the poor child was going to grow up with a flat head. The kid looks perfect, and so does Oscar, Millie says, “if you’re looking at him from the front.”

The baby is adorable, almost as cute as the “7-Eleven Kid,” and reaches out to push away a bottle of water. The kid already has a better right hand than his old man.

We’ve already done the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and not only do I not make it on stage for the second consecutive year, Leno avoids me. I can’t wait until Conan O’Brien replaces the guy.

We’re now in the air in a private jet, Millie holding the baby, while Oscar claps his hands and announces, “It’s time, it’s time.” This will be his last fight.

His wife shakes her head. “I’ll believe it when he says so publicly and I see it in the newspaper.”

“What do you want me to do -- call a press conference?” he says, and she thinks that’s a great idea.

“What’s the difference between $1 million and $2 million?” she says. “What do you do with that kind of money? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It does to me,” says Oscar while flashing that cheesy smile.

We’re about to land in Las Vegas, Millie off in the back to feed the baby, while Oscar is sitting there with a pacifier. When someone points out that he’s arriving for the biggest fight of his life with binky in hand, he says, “a little gift for Mayweather.”

I’m not sure, though, I’m the right guy to deliver it for him.

*

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.