Why Trinidad vs Norris and Trinidad vs Chavez never happened?

[Joey Giardello]

By the time Trinidad was at 154, Norris retired. And I don't think the Chavez fight would've been competitive since Chavez was a natural light welterweight. Might've still been a good action fight, though.

No trinidad boxed a lightmiddle against troy waters in 1997, he was then going to box norris next, but it never happend

[GreatRubdini]

Trinidad was in a couple undercard fights of Chavez fights

[Thread Stealer]

Trinidad fought Waters in Auguast 1997 as a WBC title eliminator at 154 lbs. Norris was the WBC title holder at 154 at this time. But Norris ended up losing four months later to Keith Mullings on the undercard DLH-Rivera. Tito was interviewed shortly after Norris lost to Mullings.

Tito went back down to 147 after this, looking for the big fights (which he got with Pea and DLH).

[RightCross94]

Trinidad-Norris at 154 would have been insane. Definitely multiple knockdowns on either side

[BEEHOP]

I think Trinidad would have KO'ed Terry Norris, and JCC at that point.

[blacklodge]

The Showtime people were hyping a potential catchweight fight between Norris and Chavez on one of those awesome early 90s Don King ppv cards. Then Chavez lost, er, I mean drew with Whitaker. Then the Randall fights. It was obvious Chavez was approaching "shell" status.
Trinidad wasn't really handled like a "star" at the time, for whatever reason. Other than Oba Carr and Yuri Boy Campas, a bunch of zeroes. There were much more marketable fights out there for him during that spell before he fought Whitaker. I remember thinking at the time that if Showtime/Don King are so sold on this guy, why is he fighting Freddie Pendleton? I don't know why he didn't move up before Waters, other than Norris was far more vulnerable at that point.

[Silencers]

The Norris fight was pretty close to being done in the mid 90s during Norris' reign but I don't think Trinidad's team was too eager to put him in the ring with Norris despite Norris' notoriously bad chin, it's said that Norris was the only fighter that Trinidad Sr. was afraid of.

[Thread Stealer]

Tito would've destroyed Norris in ugly fashion in 1997-98. Norris looked awful against Mullings. His legs and punch resistance (never great in the first place) were very noticably diminished. You could see the body reaction in Norris every time he got tagged. His combos weren't as fluid and crips as they'd once been, his shots were more "chopping".

Tito was a big WW, so a matchup in 1993-95 or so would've been better, or if you take the best Norris at 154 and match him up with the Tito of 2000.

[RightCross94]

The Norris fight was pretty close to being done in the mid 90s during Norris' reign but I don't think Trinidad's team was too eager to put him in the ring with Norris despite Norris' notoriously bad chin, it's said that Norris was the only fighter that Trinidad Sr. was afraid of.

Yeah. Even though Norris was chinny as hell, he was also explosive, powerful, fast, crisp, accurate.....Amazing offensive fighter.

I think Prime for Prime at 154, if Tito can land the big left hook, Norris is probably on his way out very quickly, but then again Norris was devastating, had tons of heart, and Tito had a tendency to go down a bit too. Tough sort of fight and would be a cracker but I think Tito probably responds better to Norris' attacks, then Norris would when he gets hit by Tito's stuff.

[blacklodge]

While I agree that the Norris that showed up against Mullings would be beaten by Trinidad (getting old in one fight?), I don't know that Trinidad would be able to reach Norris if they fought previously and Norris chose to strictly box him. The Norris highlight reel doesn't illustrate just how dominant he was as a boxer against Simon Brown in their 2nd fight (I don't see Brown as being as faded as other posters do, I think), Paul Vaden and Vincent Pettway. These were very good fighters and Norris blanked them. Likewise, Trinidad has been troubled by speed and turned into a ineffective stalker. I'm confident that Norris was capable of doing what DLH did (less balance but harder punches) if he chose to without throwing up the prevent defense like a moron.