by David P. Greisman

There are but three truths on this earthly plain, three realities as incurable as they are inevitable: death, taxes and professional athletes who are never able to fully recover from the addiction of competition.

Their lives were once cycles of constant training and travel mixed in with glorious victorious days and sleepless winless nights. And when it’s gone, emptiness sets in, followed by a search for meaning in a future that is as yet undefined.

It never helps that others are able to come back with apparent ease, be it Michael Jordan averaging 20 points per game as a 40-year-old Washington Wizard or Pete Sampras winning an exhibition match at the ancient tennis age of 36 against Roger Federer, an exceptional player 10 years his junior.

The Sweet Science is far from immune when it comes to retirements that end up as extended sabbaticals and careers that continue long past a pugilist’s best days. George Foreman was 45 when he recaptured the heavyweight championship, setting the stage for fellow big men with big dreams to keep on punching long after they should have punched out. At 40, Bernard Hopkins still ruled the middleweight division. Two years later he is the light heavyweight king.

Two of Hopkins’ most famed opponents are set to fight Saturday night, when Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad climb into the ring at Madison Square Garden for a bout that is more sideshow than showdown. Neither man is anywhere near his peak: Jones hasn’t defeated an opponent of consequence since 2003, the end of a decade-long run along the top of the middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions; Trinidad’s best days were largely in the past millennium, years when he punched through many in the welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight ranks.

Trinidad has twice given up the easy life of retirement in a land where he’s an illustrious hero. His faithful, it seems, admire him too much.

“The fans have driven me to be back in boxing; they are always telling me to fight,” Trinidad said on a conference call last week. “Everywhere I went, people were screaming for me to come back, and then you have my promoter, Don King, who has been pursuing me to convince me to come back and box.

“After the reaction of everyone and my promoter, I feel the passion to come back. I’m back. At the end, I made the decision because I wanted to come back.”

At times, it can sound as if Trinidad is still attempting to convince himself that he not only is back, but that it’s him, and not just his fans and a promoter looking to go to the well once more, who wants the return.

Trinidad fought only once following the surgical clinic Bernard Hopkins performed in 2001 in front of thousands of his Puerto Rican compatriots at Madison Square Garden. After returning to his homeland for a farewell bout, he fared well for some two years before the urge supposedly returned. Ricardo Mayorga played the fall guy in 2004 at Madison Square Garden, giving Trinidad a false sense of confidence that was quickly dispelled seven months later by the first series of Winky Wright jabs. Once again, Trinidad disappeared from the ring.

Nearly seven years have passed between the Trinidad of old and the old Trinidad. Jones turns 39 on Wednesday, but he’s at least remained semi-active, fighting twice in 2004 and once each in 2005, 2006 and 2007. And yet Trinidad, who turned 35 last week, expects to be competitive despite 32 months coming between his last appearance and this one.

“I have trained very hard for six months to make sure that the time I have had out of the ring will not affect me,” Trinidad said. “I took all the rust out of me [by] training very hard. I feel like I am very young. I really don’t care what they say about my age. I feel good and I know I’m good, and it really doesn’t matter to me.”

Training is one thing. Fights can be won and lost in the gym, but the other man has as much of a say in the matter. And Jones is predicting an early night – four rounds, to be exact.

“He is smaller than me, and it will be hard to not try to knock him out,” Jones said on a conference call last week. “Trust me, he is not going to go 12 rounds with me. I hear, ‘If he does this or if he does that…’ He may try to do all of that, but he is not going to go the distance with me.”

The bluster shouldn’t come as a surprise – Jones has rarely worked the duration of a bout in recent years, taking long stretches of rounds off to conserve energy. It is the strategy that left him vulnerable on the ropes against Glencoffe Johnson and Antonio Tarver, and it is the classic sign of a boxer who is no longer willing to use his legs to win. Not the best thing for a fighter who has long relied on his natural athleticism.

“You have to look at it like this: Superman had to gain a lot of weight to fight at heavyweight [against John Ruiz in 2003]. I had to take off a lot of weight to go back down,” Jones said. “That was all muscle. It took me a while to get back to where I feel good again.”

The light heavyweight limit is 175 pounds. The Trinidad bout, however, is being contested at a catch-weight of 170, which, if he makes it, will be the lowest Jones has tipped the scales at since 1996.

Jones has had “a much longer camp to let my body do it the right way. It has probably been about a three-month camp,” he said. “Right now I feel like my old self. I love it. … Right now I feel like I have my body back.”

But what about his chin? Trinidad says it will be put to the test.

“Everyone he has boxed that punches well, he was knocked out,” Trinidad said. “So let’s see if he can stand in there with me.

“He told me he was going to knock me out in four rounds,” Trinidad said. “I then told Roy Jones that he would not be able to do that because he will not last two. Since then, everyone has been talking about knockouts, but I am ready to fight 12 rounds. I can beat him under two, under four or the full 12.”

The knockout promises could be just for promotional purposes, but there is an underlying reason of overwhelming importance: For both men, it’s not just about the win – looking impressive is key, too. Each had accomplished so much that their last losses left lasting impressions.

“After losing to Tarver and Johnson, I needed to get myself back, not only physically but mentally also,” Jones said. “You don’t want to go out like that. I had to go back and do something different. I had to go back and redefine myself.”

As for Trinidad, the near-shutout at the (mostly right) hands of Wright has lingered on the back of his mind.

“It is impossible to feel good when you lose,” Trinidad said. “One of the reasons I came back to boxing is that I want to win this fight. I don’t like to remember a defeat.”

Most great fighters are unable to retire with an unblemished ledger. But for active fighters, the public perception is often one that asks, “What have you done for me lately?” There are few considerations made for age, injuries or diminished capabilities. Instead, it is on to the new sensation, the next big thing. Brett Favre and George Foreman aside, this is no country for old men. Not, at least, until they retire for good, and with a minimum of five years in the mirror their Hall of Fame careers can then be taken as a whole.

Jones and Trinidad have yet to define their futures, and as such they are returning for a bout that was best suited for the past. There should be no thoughts of earning a world title challenge, but each will be motivated by the implications of defeat. The reality will be incurable and inevitable: one man will enter the next stage of life winless, sleepless and directionless; the other can postpone dusk, once more gloriously victorious.

The 10 Count

1.  The last time Edison Miranda spent more time trashing his next foe than concentrating on the man immediately in front of him, Kelly Pavlik sent the bomb-throwing Colombian straight into unconsciousness.

Lightning wouldn’t strike twice, however, not when a thunderous right hand simultaneously sent David Banks through the ropes and sent a message to Miranda’s probable next challenge, super middleweight prospect Jean Pascal.

Miranda’s win came after two mostly nondescript rounds against David Banks, a boxer whose loss on the most recent edition of “The Contender” was a split decision against respected 168-pounder Paul Smith.

The third round of Miranda-Banks was brief and fantastic.

Sixty-one seconds in, Banks had backed against the ropes. Miranda popped out a jab and followed it with a brutal right hand that landed loudly. Banks dropped and fell halfway outside of the ring, his recumbent body supported by the bottom two ropes. Amazingly, Banks attempted to beat the count when few expected him to be able to get up for some time. But he was on shaky legs as the referee finished counting to 10, and the bout was over.

2.  Pascal, meanwhile, didn’t bring as imposing a result in his match on the undercard to Miranda-Banks on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights,” going the full 10 rounds with the 15-3-1 Omar Pittman. And while Pascal won comfortably on the judges’ scorecards, Pittman landed shots in rounds seven and eight that clearly had an effect on the Haitian transplant.

Pascal salvaged the matchmaking momentum after Miranda’s victory, jawing back and forth with him from ringside, where Pascal had joined commentators Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore. It wasn’t quite a pull-apart brawl or the shoving from the previous week’s press conference, but it’ll work for bringing in the fans when Miranda-Pascal comes around.

3.  Pascal’s fellow Montreal-based super middleweight, Lucien Bute, is scheduled to make his first defense of his world title Feb. 29 against William Joppy. It is a Leap Day fight that requires a leap of faith to condone.

Bute is an up-and-coming name at 168 pounds whose last two bouts saw him outpoint Sakio Bika and then capture his International Boxing Federation belt with an 11th-round stoppage of Alejandrio Berrio.

In contrast, Joppy hasn’t been relevant since earlier this century. The former middleweight titlist lost via technical knockout to Felix Trinidad in 2001, got beat down against Bernard Hopkins in 2003 and then provided Jermain Taylor with little resistance one year later. Yes, Joppy has rolled off a streak of five consecutive early nights, but those wins came against 8-34-2 Rashaan Blackburn, 11-9-1 Eric Howard, 44-14-2 Jonathan Corn, 22-10 Virgil McClendon and 32-27-2 Etienne Whitaker.

That was somehow good enough for the IBF to place Joppy at number 15 in their light heavyweight rankings, despite him only weighing in below the 175-pound limit in the Howard and Whitaker outings. Joppy actually tipped the scales at 168 against Blackburn – his one appearance in recent years at super middleweight – though Blackburn came into the ring that night at 159 pounds, nine less than his opponent.

4.  The aforementioned Banks wasn’t the only former “Contender” contestant in action last week; first-season champion Sergio Mora scored a sixth-round stoppage against unexpectedly difficult opponent Rito Ruvalcaba, though the result wasn’t without some controversy.

Ruvalcaba, wobbled earlier in the round, retreated to the ropes with less than two minutes remaining to go. Mora landed a left hand that sent Ruvalcaba’s head beyond the ropes, and referee Ray Corona attempted to jump in to halt the bout. He fell in the process, though, and the fighters kept doing what they were being paid to do. Corona soon rose from the canvas, and like an umpire who makes a bad call and then sticks with it, waved the proceedings off.

Ruvalcaba was returning from more than three years away from the sport, a sabbatical that began after Jose Luis Zertuche starched the middleweight measuring stick in less than a minute. Nearly all of Ruvalcaba’s eight losses had come via kayo or technical knockout, but Mora has never been known for his pop.

Mora’s inactivity didn’t help either. His previous appearance, an October draw with Eric Regan, was the first time “the Latin Snake” had been in the ring in nearly 14 months. As such, Mora, whose “Contender” stint turned him into a prematurely prominent prospect, has seen his development stifled, and he will soon need to distinguish himself before his quarter-hour of fame runs out.

5.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part one: Nicolay Valuev was fined a total of 130,000 roubles, or approximately $5,335, for punching a security guard in January 2006 outside of a sports complex in St. Petersburg, Russia, according to the Reuters news service.

Yuri Sergeyev, who was an imposing 61 years old at the time, will receive 100,000 of those roubles as compensation for the assault. Valuev has told local press that the incident was merely an attempt to “shake off” the security guard after Sergeyev insulted the former heavyweight titlist’s wife.

“Just imagine what would have happened to that old man if I really punched him,” Valuev is quoted as saying to the Russian media.”

One imagines Sergeyev would’ve received, at the least, a mandatory eight count and a much larger paycheck.

Valuev, who was dethroned last April in a bout with Ruslan Chagaev, rebounded five months later with a 12-round decision over previously undefeated Jean-Francois Bergeron. Valuev’s next appearance is slated for Feb. 16, an elimination bout against fellow former beltholder Sergei Liakhovich. The victor will become mandatory challenger to the winner of this week’s title fight between Chagaev and Matt Skelton.

6.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part two: Norberto Bravo is scheduled to appear in court next week for a Dec. 21 incident in which the former “Contender” contestant allegedly assaulted his fiancée in the presence of the couple’s four-year-old son, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Bravo, who was reportedly released from jail on his own recognizance, has a pretrial hearing set for Jan. 22 on misdemeanor charges relating to the alleged assault, a window he is accused of breaking afterward in an attempt to get back inside their house, and contributing to the delinquency and dependency of a minor.

The 37-year-old Bravo made it to the semifinals in the second season of Mark Burnett’s boxing reality series, losing a five-round majority decision to eventual tournament winner Grady Brewer. Bravo has fought six times since, coming up short whenever he stepped up in level of opposition against Andre Berto, Cornelius Bundrage and Yori Boy Campas.

Bravo last fought on Oct. 11, an opening-stanza knockout of 5-6-1 Julio Perez.

7.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part three: Amir Khan had his driver’s license suspended for seven weeks and was ordered to pay a total of 1,790 pounds in fines and court costs for a New Year’s Eve 2006 incident in which police accused the lightweight prospect of driving at speeds of up to 140 mph, according to BBC News.

District Judge Pamela Baldwin said there was insufficient evidence Khan was driving that fast, but she nevertheless found him guilty of breaking the speed limit. The license suspension will run concurrently with a six-month penalty Khan received in October after a jury found him guilty of driving carelessly in a separate case. That trial related to a March 2006 incident in which Khan hit a pedestrian with his car, breaking the person’s leg. The jury did find him not guilty of more serious charges of dangerous driving.

Khan, who captured lightweight silver at the 2004 Olympics, has run up a 15-0 record in the professional ranks, with 12 wins coming by way of knockout. His last appearance was Dec. 8, a first-round stoppage of Graham Earl.

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part four: Mehdi Sahnoune could be headed to prison for 12 months in connection with a 2002 incident in which the former light heavyweight titlist allegedly took part in a six-person attack of a 27-year-old man, according to the Agence France-Presse news outlet.

Sahnoune and a second man were each sentenced to three years in prison and fined 2,500 euros for assaulting the man outside of a nightclub near Aix-en-Provence in southern France. The victim, who suffered six fractures to his skull, was reportedly assaulted because he danced in an “overly exuberant manner.”

Sahnoune captured the World Boxing Association 175-pound title in March 2003 with a seventh-round stoppage of Bruno Girard. He would drop the belt seven months later, losing via technical knockout to Silvio Branco.

Sahnoune last fought in October 2005, when he was stopped in a bout with lineal champion Zsolt Erdei.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part five: Japanese junior welterweight Daisuke Sakamoto was arrested last week for allegedly punching a 41-year-old man in the stomach and face after a Dec. 21 argument in a Tokyo train station, according to reports from the Land of the Rising Sun (and also written about with extremely opinionated language by Hall-of-Fame boxing jack-of-all-trades Joe Koizumi).

Sakamato joined the professional ranks last year, winning his first two bouts and fighting to a draw in the third. He is scheduled to fight Jan. 28 against Norihito Nakamura.

10.  Bravo. Khan. Sahnoune. Sakamato. Valuev. It’s quite a police lineup. But which one is actually Keyser Soze?

David P. Greisman’s weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com