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Shame he was a cheater...
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I put these guys on the spot when they make a comment like that. If you follow what I write is somebody writes something dumb like that I want them to explain instead of going back and forth or they make it into a race thing. They never answer back or just leave the threadComment
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Bouie Fischer:
"I tell you, Ike. They have been getting away with that for a long time. I sent my people to Trinidad's locker room to make sure everything was right. When they got there they came back to me and told me that Trinidad's left hand was wrapped before they got there. So, I had to go over to his dressing room myself, this is my business and I have been doing it for over 50 years. When I got there I told them to unwrap the hand and do it over because we need to see the hand being wrapped. They refused to unwrap the hands so I told them I guess the fight will not happen then, we can reschedule to another date. The officials came in and said we don't have time to do this over. I told them, well we must do this right or no fight. They know the rules, no tape on the skin or tape on the ankle. His left hand was heavy just like your camera. Guess what, the officials then said, " you can go and wrap Bernard hands anyway you want." Trinidad's father and his people didn't want to make the change because they knew they cheated and they tried to cover it up. I wasn't going for that, we have to do this right, they raised hell like you couldn't believe.
I said you can do it your way, but there will be no fight if you don't do it right. They said we are going to leave it as it is, so I told them we can reschedule the fight untill next week. They didn't want to do that. This is why we had a delay coming out. When they saw Bernard they tried to ask us to take off just a little tape, but they had a half roll of tape on Trinidad's left hand. This is why people say he has a good left hook. David Reid paid a big price, Trinidad took away the fighter in him. David Reids people were trying to schedule a fight with Bernard and it could have happened if Reid would have won his last fight.
I'm glad it never happened."Comment
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The day of the Felix Trinidad-Bernard Hopkins fight, members of Hopkins' team visited the Trinidad dressing room in normal boxing custom to watch the taping of Trinidad's hands before his gloves were placed on. The Hopkins camp, including trainer Bouie Fisher, noticed that Trinidad's hands were wrapped in an incorrect fashion, and threatened to cancel the fight unless they were wrapped correctly. The Chief Inspector of the NYSAC forced Trinidad's camp to re-wrap his hands in a correct fashion, which was not done correctly until it was attempted a third time.
Before his bout with Trinidad, Fernando Vargas was forewarned to check Trinidad's hand wraps, and William Joppy was also warned of possible illegal taping by heavyweight boxer Hasim Rahman.
During his prefight press conference with Jermain Taylor, Joppy said Trinidad was not deserving of Boxing Hall of Fame induction, claiming that Tito "brought a bat to a fist fight".The Hopkins hand wrapping incident would later lead to an investigative story by Max Boxing. Boxing trainers and opponents of Trinidad later claimed that the fashion of hand wrapping in Trinidad's hands gave the boxer the equivalent of brass knuckles.Comment
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Joppy, who was visibly dazed after his fight against Trinidad, says that Trinidad's punches had an unnatural feeling to them.
"I've been hit with good shots," Joppy told xxxxxxxxx.com. "But I was like, 'Damn! He ain't that strong!' I've been up against guys where they say, 'Man, this guy can hit, watch him,' And I've been hit by them and they could hit, but I could weather the storm. And I know he beefed up even more since he moved to middleweight, his father probably did something. His father loves him so much, that's his baby, so he has to give his son that extra advantage. They've been doing it his whole career."
According to Joppy, all of Trinidad's past accomplishments are now tainted.
"He's a cheat," Joppy said. "Before I heard about that, I was like,' I take my hat off to him. He's a great champion, he should go to the Hall of Fame'. But I can't give him that anymore, his whole record, he's 40-1 — it's nothing now. You can't do that anymore, he's cheating like a Panama Lewis."
Fernando Vargas, current WBA 154-pound titlist, had faced Trinidad prior to 'Tito's' destruction of Joppy. In the aftermath of taking five knockdowns over 12 rounds at the hands of Trinidad, Vargas, according to many observers has not been the same fighter he was before facing the Puerto Rican superstar.
"When I got hit," recalled Vargas. "I was like, 'did Mike Tyson just hit me or something?' I mean, I knew he was strong and everything but that was ridiculous. I couldn't believe what he was hitting me with."
Vargas admits that his representatives 'dropped the ball' in not catching the infraction of Trinidad's wrapping like the Hopkins camp.
"Next time, I'll definitely have someone in there who knows what they're doing in looking for that stuff," he said.
Vargas declined to name who was in Trinidad's dressing room before their fight last December.
But Vargas said that he was warned of such shenanigans in Trinidad's homeland on the press tour for 'Forces of Destruction.'
"Somebody came up to me at the press conference in Puerto Rico," stated Vargas. "He was Puerto Rican and I don't know who he is, but I've seen him around many fights, he's affiliated with boxing. I don't know if he's a trainer, manager, whatever he might be. He said, 'Look, I'm Puerto Rican, but I don't like Trinidad's people. I'm gonna tell you guys, you better watch out for the way he wraps.' And I'm over here thinking, 'I mean, what can you do with your wraps?' Y'know what I'm saying? I didn't really pay it no mind and obviously we sent somebody in there who didn't know too much about wraps."
Joppy himself is a bit miffed that his camp didn't catch the infraction and says that he was warned by a recognizable name.
"Actually, Hasim Rahman, he came back to my dressing room and said, 'Go check the wraps, make sure you get somebody on that,' but I was so hyped up, ready to fight. I was like, 'It's alright, it's alright'. I never thought he'd be a cheat. I thought he was a professional, a fair and square type of guy. He's been cheating his whole career."Comment
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You wrote all this and the wrapping was another full roll of gauze and tape that went directly on the skin. This is the fact and I don't remeber Tito getting suspended or fined for it. If all those fighters before hand were advised to check the wraps don't you think they would had?Comment
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"Brother ****m and I were the first two from our camp to go in there and when we came in, they had one of Tito's hands already wrapped. Basically, the New York inspector, he was a Puerto Rican guy also, he said to us that he guaranteed that the hand-wraps were correct. That this was his job, he was doing it for many years and basically that he wasn't going to have him take it off. So it became an argument, we went back and forth."
In most big fights, it is customary to have representatives of the rival camp on hand to witness the fighters' hands being prepared. According to Fisher, it was Trinidad's vaunted left that was already wrapped and ready to go.
"Eventually, we had him send a superior and he came in and he told them that we had to be there (to see the hands wrapped), so he got mad at me and asked me to leave because there was only one supposed to be one representative. So I stayed there 'till they started cutting off the hand wraps and when they cut it off they needed 'the jaws of life' to get 'em off."
So how exactly were Trinidad's hands wrapped?
"They were basically layering his hand, he had gauze, tape, gauze, tape, gauze, tape — it was like
four
or five layers, in contrast to being a layer of gauze, with a knuckle pad which was gauze and then layers of tape. They had four of five layers of gauze and tape."
So after threatening not to fight if they were made to re-wrap, Trinidad did just that, but not without a fuss.
"We made them re-wrap," said Fisher. "That was first. Then they wrapped the hands the exact same way, that's when Brother ****m was like, You can't do this, he's wrapping his hands wrong. It's too much gauze and tape that going to be on his hand.' That's when they called for my dad, my dad came in there and shared his thoughts on how it was wrong.
"And the guy who was the inspector, he should be fired from the New York State Athletic Commission, because he was so biased. When my dad came to the dressing room, they went back and forth and the same guy, he told my dad, 'Well, you can wrap your fighters hands the exact same way I'm letting Tito wrap his, Tito's not going to change his wraps. My dad told him, 'Bernard's used to having his hands wrapped a certain way — the correct way."
Eventually, the chief inspector of the NYSAC stepped in.
"The chief inspector, he's a fair guy," states Fisher. "He told them that they had to follow the rules. I guess they've been getting away with this for so long that they didn't have to follow the rules, they thought. He made them. He enforced it."
Vargas was one of many who saw this situation unfold on the pay-per-view telecast.
"That made my laugh," admitted Vargas. "I tip my hat to Hopkins first, because he caught him and I loved what he said when the commentator said, 'Bernard, he's been doing this his whole career,' and he said, 'Yeah, but it doesn't make it right.'"Comment
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