By Cliff Rold
Photo (c) David Martin Warr/DKP
If they had fought in 2001 when both were still peak, I would have picked former 4-division titlist Roy Jones (51-4, 38 KO) to destroy former 3-division titlist and World welterweight champion Felix Trinidad (45-2, 35 KO) inside of three rounds.
The passage of time has not made this then rumored, and now almost signed, bout any more competitive.
It’s rare that a fight between two living legends, in this case two of my favorite fighters ever to watch, would inspire less than excitement in me. This one got a belly laugh when I heard about it on Monday.
Maybe even a bit of a belly ache.
If 2007 has been building slowly, through one solid fight after another, towards a fall schedule that is everything right about the sport, we know for sure now that 2008 will be off to a lesser start.
This is not a condemnation of either Jones or Trinidad. Both were, on their best days, great fighters. An easy case can be made that each was among the top ten to twenty, all-time, in their most dominant weight classes (Trinidad at welterweight; Jones at light-heavyweight). Definitive cases can be made for them in slightly less established weight classes (Tito at 154 and Roy at 168) as among the very best.
Read those numbers again. Even in their best days, Trinidad and Jones were always two or three weight classes apart and Jones was the faster, harder hitting man regardless of weight. This was never really a competitive fight and it probably won’t be now at the proposed catch weight of 170 lbs.
And this is no longer the time of their best days.
There is no doubting that this bout will have allure for certain fans. Puerto Rican fans love Felix Trinidad. Check that…they LOVE Felix Trinidad. Trying to argue any flaws Tito may have had in his prime with his most avid followers is like trying to argue with Tom Cruise that Lord Xenu was Hubbard’s idea of an investment portfolio.
Roy’s diehards were and are much the same. They decided that Roy was the answer in their time to Sugar Ray Robinson and no matter whom he fought, and more importantly sometimes did not fight, they were not to be dissuaded. That’s not to say Roy wasn’t great; wins over Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, Montell Griffin, Virgil Hill and his balls out, gut check win over Antonio Tarver in their first bout are the collection of a great fighter.
What is bothersome is that it’s never been enough to their diehards for the rest of the world to recognize Tito or Roy as merely great; they seek higher vindication than rational minds may allow.
That combination of hero-worship, combined with brand name nostalgia, is likely to make this fight one of the more successful pay-per-view outings of the decade. With Don King at the helm, it might do even better than that. Don always knows when he has a show and that’s what this is. If we get a fight to go along with the show so be it but the man who made Mike Tyson-Peter McNeely into a worldwide event won’t be bothered with that element.
That begs the question of course as to whether a fight will actually break out. Jones is no spring chicken. He’ll be 39 when the opening bell sounds but has the distinct advantage of at least moderate activity in recent years. He even looked like he still had something left against game professional, and much younger man, Anthony Hanshaw in their bout last month. He scored a knockdown for the first time since 2002 and conserved his energy well. It doesn’t erase the knockout and decision losses to Tarver or the five minutes on the deck after the Glenn Johnson catastrophe in 2004, but it at least showed he wasn’t completely shot.
Tito doesn’t even have that going for him. Tito will enter the ring the younger man, just past the tick of 35 years, but younger is not the same as youthful. His most recent outing, in May 2005, was a twelve round embarrassment against Winky Wright that saw him land in single digits in almost every round. To say he won more than a few seconds all night…well, he didn’t so don’t say it.
The members of the Church of Tito (a group that should be particularly frenzied if Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto gets by Shane Mosley in November) will still find reasons for hope.
And I suppose this effort is not without any hope at all. Team Tito will remember that Jones has blamed his most devastating losses on struggles with making 175 lbs., they’ll know that the catch weight of this bout requires Jones to come even farther down, and they’ll recall the prone bodies that piled at Tito’s feet over the years. Tito’s fists and Jones perceived shaky chin make an inviting realm for speculation.
I guess that’s just part of the fun of being a sports fan. There’s always room to dream about tomorrow and room to live, if only for a moment, in yesterdays that wash over the minds eye like a dream.
Those that can’t be swept up in such things by this particular fight (while reserving of course the right to bring such emotion to another encounter) won’t spoil the fun. Heck if I’m wrong, if the other realists like me out there are wrong, then so be it. We actually can add to the fun, giving the faithful someone to point and laugh at afterwards.
Until then, I have to call it like I see it. This is two name guys long past their prime asking the fans to part with their hard earned cash for a fight that probably won’t be one. This is two guys with a difference in size and skill at their peak that should still translate into the same result even after all these years:
Jones KO3 Trinidad.
That’s hard to get excited about considering all the better things boxing has given the world in 2007 and given it to look forward to in coming months.
Izzy: Speaking of the better things, it’s been a lot of fun in the last week to see now two-time World jr. featherweight champion Israel Vazquez (42-4, 31 KO) showing up on serious pound-for-pound lists around the sport. Vazquez, only 29, is in his twelfth year as a professional and yet for many fans it’s as if he’s just arrived. After years of slugging in the trenches behind larger names like Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao, Vazquez now has the mountaintop to himself.
The impending end to his already classic series with Mexico’s Rafael Marquez (37-4, 33 KO, Ring Magazine #1 contender at 122 lbs.) will allow history to judge him solely on his merits. It’s a testament to Vazquez’s professionalism and the quality of the blood he’s spilled in the ring.
That blood is a big part of the lofty pound-for-pound space he’s carved for himself. Since 2002, Vazquez has been in four fights that rate with the best of this decade and with any that have ever occurred in the confines of 122 lbs. His 2002 rematch with Oscar Larios (the 2002 FOTY if not for Arturo Gatti-Mickey Ward), his off the deck twice win last year against Jhonny Gonzalez, and now his two fights with Marquez are a remarkable quartet. It’s enough to make one a little sad at the thought that he just missed those name warriors.
It also brings about a smile to think of how hard it is to make a star where few stars abound. Vazquez did it the old fashioned way. He stayed in the gym, stayed in the ring, and stayed in wars until the right battles came along. Welcome to the elite champ…although you’ve clearly been there for awhile, the rest of the world can only apologize for not knowing any better a little sooner.
Penalosa: Another exceptional professional got a win last Saturday night that forces a Vazquez-like check of the resume. Gerry Penalosa (52-6-2, 35 KO) of the Phillipines came from behind on the cards to land a picture perfect left hand just behind Jhonny Gonzalez’s (34-5, 29 KO) liver to capture the WBO alphabelt at 118 lbs.
Gonzalez had been on a tear at bantamweight. Wins over Fernando Montiel, Mark Johnson, Irene Pacheco, and the narrow loss in a war to Vazquez last year, announced the lanky 25-year old from Mexico as a major force for the foreseeable future. Even in defeat, that is likely still the case. In other words, beating Gonzalez is no small task.
Penalosa pulled the feat and yet still wrestles in the shadow of a younger man: countryman Manny Pacquiao. While Penalosa, already 34, won’t ever be as popular or accomplished as Manny, he has put together one of the finer recent careers that most boxing fans didn’t see.
A decade ago, two years before Pacquiao’s first title victory at flyweight, Penalosa captured the lineal World 115 lb. championship with a narrow split decision victory over Japan’s Hiroshi Kawashima. Penalosa would hold make four defenses in just over a year before dropping a split decision of his own to In Joo Choo on Choo’s turf in South Korea in 1998.
Another split in Korea against Choo in 2000 pushed Penalosa from the title picture only temporarily. A win over solid Thai warrior Ratanachai Sor Vorapin in 2000 would springboard Penalosa to two title shots against a near great in Japan’s Masamori Tokuyama. Tokuyama was the man who took the crown from Choo and Penalosa came close on both occasions to taking it back. Their second bout in 2002 was a particularly tough pill to swallow, a split-decision loss that many saw the other way.
For Penalosa to rebound in 2007, at his age, is a remarkable story. Remember, there are a significant group of knowledgeable boxing people who think Penalosa deserved the nod against WBO 122 lb. beltholder Daniel Ponce De Leon (32-1, 28 KO, #4). Add that to the win over Gonzalez and this has been almost a fairy tale year for the old vet. It’s hard to say where he goes from here, but he’s right there in the race for world’s best bantamweight with Japan’s Hozumi Hasegawa (22-2, 7 KO, #1) and Ukranie’s Wladimir Sidorenko (20-0, 7 KO, #3). That’s a hell of a place to be.
Cliff’s Notes…
De Leon: And as to young Ponce, let’s just say wow (or perhaps Pow!). His punching power simply was too much for Rey Bautista (23-1, 18 KO) of the Phillipines and it might be too much for anyone at 122 right now not named Celestino Caballero (27-2, 18 KO, #2) of Panama. Up to now, Caballero is the only man to lodge a victory against the concrete fisted Mexican. Might be time to see if he can go for two…
Forgotten Man: The number one contender to World middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (27-0-1, 17 KO) is back in action this weekend and, no, Kelly Pavlik (31-0, 28 KO, #3) is not taking a tune-up for his September 29th challenge. In Germany, Armenian Artur Abraham (23-0, 18 KO, #2 behind Winky Wright but is Winky still really fighting at 160?...and oh yeah, he has an IBF belt) will be looking to extend his unbeaten mark against fellow Armenian Khoren Gevor (27-2, 15 KO) and move closer to more anonymity abroad. Abraham is an exceptional talent and tough as nails, something he proved in going the final seven rounds with a broken jaw against murder punching Edison Miranda last year, all the while being viciously fouled. Abraham also got more than a little help from the referee, but I digress. What Abraham is not as yet is a traveler and for the time being the middleweight title is firmly entrenched in the U.S.A. If he wants to be a remembered man, he’s needs a passport…
First Letdown: So much for some heavyweight unification. The world’s most underrated heavyweight, Ruslan Chagaev (23-0-1, 17 KO, #4, WBA belt) picked up some Hepatitis C from wherever one gets that dazzling number and is out of the proposed October unification bout with Sultan Ibragimov (21-0-1, 17 KO, #6, WBO belt). It’s the first major letdown of the Fall 2007 schedule but it’s also at heavyweight so it’s not that much of a letdown after all. Ibragimov will now face former two-time lineal World champion Evander Holyfield (42-8, 27 KO, unrated), bringing the world potentially closer to Holyfield-Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44 KO, #1)…
Countdown: Checking the Julian calendar, and, yes, we are all only 80 days away from the best fight in boxing circa 2007: World super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KO) of Wales versus his top contender, Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KO) of Denmark. No updates on my travel plans but big props to the first Yahoo! Pound-for-pound list for having Calzaghe in their #3 spot. That’s a fair assessment of a great champion and the exact spot I believe the winner of this fight should hold barring losses by Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather. Ethnocentrism doesn’t override talent and both these fighters have boatloads. 80 days away…
Little Big Men: I’m really looking forward to next week’s showdown between the world’s best 105 lb. boxer, Ivan Calderon (28-0, 6 KO, #1, WBO belt) of Puerto Rico and Ring Magazine World 108 lb. champ Hugo Cazares (25-3, 19 KO, WBO belt) of Mexico. I’ll have a full look at this under-the-radar epic next week but for now I leave with merely a plea in light of the Top Rank/Golden Boy Promotions truce: Please, pretty please, can someone sign the winner of this bout against Ulises Solis (25-1-2, 19 KO, #1, IBF belt) of Mexico for one of the big pay-per-view undercards at the end of the year? Please?
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
