DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — Felix Trinidad doesn't speak English so well, yet made his position very clear.
Only one fighter could lure him from retirement: Roy Jones Jr.
"Roy Jones is one of the biggest and greatest champions ever in boxing," Trinidad said Monday. "But he's never faced a puncher like me."
He will in January, when the two stars meet at an undetermined site in what promoter Don King is already calling "the people's championship." Both have agreed to fight at 170 pounds - 10 pounds more than Trinidad has ever carried into the ring, and five less than what Jones weighed when he beat previously undefeated Anthony Hanshaw last month.
"It's a unique, special event that this sport needs," Jones said. "If you can't put it on the line for this, then you can't put it on the line for anything. This is the type of thing you put it on the line for. The sport needs another megafight and that's what this is."
Trinidad hasn't fought since losing to Winky Wright in May 2005 and has only prevailed in two bouts in the last six years. But when King flew to Puerto Rico about two months ago to gauge his interest in a comeback, Trinidad quickly said he'd be open to a matchup with Jones.
"This is going to be one of the most thrilling events we've seen in boxing in many, many decades," King said. "This is about pleasing the people."
Trinidad signed his part of the contract Monday, and King said he'd move quickly to get a deal struck with Jones - who flew down from Pensacola, Fla. only hours after Trinidad formally agreed to the deal.
"I don't understand how Tito thinks he's going to win," said Jones' adviser, McGee Wright. "But he's a fighter and that's what we like. If he didn't think he could win, he wouldn't be there."
Trinidad is a former welterweight, super welterweight and middleweight champion and a national hero in his homeland of Puerto Rico. He took 2 1/2 years off before beating Ricardo Mayorga in 2004, but was dominated when he met Wright seven months later.
He retired again after that fight, but whispers of a Trinidad-Jones possible matchup have been circling for months.
"Most fighters of Tito Trinidad's stature would want a warmup fight after being off for this long," King said. "Not Tito Trinidad."
Felix Trinidad Sr., the fighter's father, manager and trainer, said he probably wouldn't have agreed to another comeback try unless the potential fight had the marquee appeal he believes a Trinidad-Jones matchup will carry.
And he's not worried about the layoff, either.
"I can be proud to bring my son into battle with a giant such as Roy Jones," the elder Trinidad said. "My son's a legend, but so is Roy Jones. And Roy Jones has been there forever. He's made an indelible mark on people around the world."
Trinidad is 42-2; Jones Jr. is 51-4. Neither plans to fight before January matchup, and King hopes to have an exact date and site set soon.
"It's going to be a very big fight. A huge fight," Trinidad said. "I hear from Roy that somebody has to go down in this fight. I have to tell you Roy, it's going to be you. I always come to win."
