You have to respect Vernon Forrest's intelligence. He is matching wits with Bob Arum. Arum is a confessed liar and payer of illegal sanctioning fees, and he has been called many bad things. But I have never heard anyone call him stupid. After Don King, Arum has been boxing's most powerful promoter over the last three decades largely because he is very smart.

So here is Arum saying that it does not make sense to put Oscar De La Hoya in the ring with Forrest until the welterweight champion of the world becomes better known to the pay-per-view and ticket buying Latin American market. Forrest countered by saying that he thought Arum's comment was "borderline racist." The welterweight champ is quoted by Jack Welsh of ringsports.com as saying that it is insulting to Hispanic fans to assume that they are only familiar with "Hispanic fighters, or guys who fight Hispanic fighters."

Arum certainly knows the business of boxing, and he may be right about building Forrest's marquee with the Latin American audience. Or, Arum may simply be looking to avoid putting his meal ticket in with Forrest. Whatever the case, Forrest's retort was brilliant. He did not harp on the injustice of Arum's possible ducking of him. Instead, he engaged Arum in the debate on Arum's own terms.

As for De La Hoya, his sights are set on rematches with Felix Trinidad, whom he has already beaten once in the eyes of most, and Shane Mosley, who Forrest has beaten twice. For Arum and De La Hoya, fights with Trinidad and Mosley seem to offer less risk with greater reward than a fight with Forrest.

Or do they? Oscar might make twice as much against Trinidad as he would against Forrest. But Oscar already has most of the money in the world. Does he really want all of it? Listening to him talk recently, it seems his boxing legacy is foremost in his mind. To that end, he sees a rematch with the first man to beat him on the official's scorecards as a way to take care of unfinished business. But most people feel De La Hoya was robbed against Trinidad, and since their controversial encounter, Tito has been soundly whipped by Bernard Hopkins.

The non-monetary reward for beating Trinidad is therefore compromised. The risk would be high. At junior middle or middleweight, the naturally larger Trinidad would have a better chance against Oscar than he did at welter, where he had to starve himself to make weight. A Trinidad fight offers a real possibility that Oscar would lose to a guy who was not too long ago dominated and knocked out. In terms of De La Hoya's legacy, this fight makes sense, but it is perilous.

A Mosley fight does not offer De La Hoya significantly more money (if any more at all) than a Forrest fight. So the question is, what is the higher risk to "The Golden Boy's" place in boxing history - fighting a guy who already beat him, and has since lost twice? Or fighting the guy who twice beat Mosley, but a guy who on paper Oscar matches up evenly against? Beat Mosley, and Oscar hasn't beaten anyone Forrest hasn't already gotten to. But beat Forrest and Oscar will have done something no one else, including Mosley, has been able to do.

Since he moved up from 140 pounds, Oscar De La Hoya has taken on the best fighters of his era and has ducked no one. He now has five potential big fight opponents. They are: Forrest, Mosley, Trinidad, Winky Wright and Bernard Hopkins. The real unfinished business De La Hoya has is not with Trinidad and Mosley, but with Forrest, Wright and Hopkins. Fight those three, and when his career is over Oscar will truly be able to say that he fought absolutely every top fighter of his era, bar none.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights.