JONES-TRINIDAD MAY HAVE COME AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME
Way back in 2001, after Roy Jones had demolished Julio Gonzalez and Felix Trinidad was in training camp, preparing to face Bernard Hopkins to unify the middleweight championship, boxing’s top two fighters looked to be on a collision course toward a mega-money showdown. Unfortunately for Trinidad, and Jones too, Hopkins dismantled such plans by dissecting and destroying Trinidad in Madison Square Garden. A fantasy match-up that had come tantalizingly close to fruition was shot down, and fans were left to wonder, “What if?” Six years later, Jones and Trinidad, both seeking big money paydays and career revivals, decided to make that fantasy into reality albeit with much less interest. When it was all over, Roy dropped Trinidad twice and coasted to a clear cut unanimous decision victory, offering a hint of what 2002 would have looked like when he upended Tito in a compelling yet decisive contest.
Jones and Trinidad did their best to draw attention to what Don King dubbed an epic clash of boxing titans, but with five losses now between them, the luster for the match-up evaporated years ago. Some noise was made at the weigh-in when controversy reared its fascinatingly ugly head, but it wasn’t because Trinidad came in a pound over the contractually agreed catch weight of 170 pounds. On the contrary, Jones told Trinidad not to preoccupy himself with the weight and instead suggested Tito allow him the luxury of wearing the Grant gloves he preferred. The contract, however, called for Roy to wear Everlast gloves, and, in the end, the written word stood. With all the commotion taken care of, there was nothing left to do but fight, and both men came into Madison Square Garden to do just that.
The bout began in somewhat of a paradoxical fashion, a tentative yet intense affair as Trinidad approached with controlled aggression while Jones opted to pick his infrequent but authoritative shots. The event had been advertised as showcasing two of boxing’s best, and both men looked the part, fighting better than they had in many years. Trinidad, whose best days came at weights ranging from 147 to 154 pounds, looked comfortable at his record high weight, and Jones, who once claimed to have problems when coming back down to the light heavyweight limit from the heavyweight division, seemed in top form. Catching Tito with thudding right hand leads, Roy appeared to edge a close first round. Trinidad did his best to return some meaningful blows of his own but hit mostly glove on a last ditch effort to steal the round. Jones responded with some fancy footwork to mock Trinidad’s efforts just before the bell.
Round two was as close as the first, but Trinidad was the aggressor throughout, going after Jones’ body with both hands, though Referee Arthur Mercante mistakenly called several of the shots low blows. Jones’ hand speed allowed him to rain some good punches on Trinidad, but Tito continued to beat him to the gloves upstairs before punishing Roy’s exposed body. Perhaps looking to fulfill his prediction of an early round knockout, Jones stood in and banged with Trinidad, knocking Tito’s head back with a solid straight right hand. Roy proceeded to go after Trinidad following the shot but caught a straight right from Tito in return. The fight was unfolding as exciting as advertised due to the willingness, whether forced by old age or not, of both men to stand and deliver. The evenly balanced first two rounds suggested the bout had the potential to go either way, and a knockout looked likely. The crowd voiced its appreciation following the bell.
After missing on a big left hook in round three, Trinidad caught a counter left hook, followed by a hard straight right from Jones. Jones then earned a warning from Mercante for measuring Trinidad with his glove, but Roy made it count, nailing Tito with another straight right. Trinidad fired back with a left hook that knocked Jones into the ropes and another one to the body. Tito followed up with a combination to the beltline, prompting Jones to respond by beating on his body in front of Trinidad. Offended, Tito went for another body shot and caught a hard left hook across the mouth in return as the crowd ate up Jones’ antics. Jones continued pounding on his belly and waving Tito in for another try, even stopping to wiggle his body before turning his head away from Trinidad to point and yell at the rowdy crowd. When Roy waved Tito on again, Trinidad was much more hesitant to unleash anything wild. Jones resorted to sticking his head out, daring Trinidad to hit him. Tito finally had enough and attempted the same wild left hook that got him into his predicament as he ate a counter left from Jones and another straight right. A good one-two from Jones punctuated a wildly entertaining round just before the bell, after which Trinidad attempted to fire back, hitting nothing but Jones’ gloves and an intervening Mercante’s back. Jones and his trainer, Alton Merkerson, met briefly with Mercante to voice a complaint after the bell, most likely about Trinidad landing low blows.
Roy opened the fourth round by smacking Trinidad with quick rights and lefts, but Tito eventually trapped Jones on the ropes and returned to beating him to the body. Jones again felt the need to stick his head out and shake it around in front of the renowned power puncher, but Tito wasn’t taking the bait anymore, instead smashing Roy with some body shots when the openings were there. Jones responded by wiggling his hips before landing a pair of crunching left hooks to Trinidad. A straight right opened the door for Jones to land another pair of left hooks as his hand speed began coming into play. Trinidad managed to catch Jones with a sharp straight right, which Jones acknowledged by nodding his head before answering with a better straight right on Tito. Jones drilled Trinidad with one more straight right at the bell before Mercante rushed in with such dramatics one would have been forgiven for thinking he had stopped the fight. Roy was certainly beginning to do a number on Trinidad, yet the fight remained wonderfully competitive. Jones failed to score his prognosticated fourth round knockout, but viewers around the world benefited from him coming up short.
The Puerto Rican contingency of the crowd began to chant, “Tito” in the fifth round in the hopes of picking their compatriot up, but a “Roy” chant went up immediately thereafter, suggesting the crowd was as deadlocked as some of the early rounds had been. After catching a borderline low blow, Jones stepped back and looked accusingly at Mercante while Trinidad dropped his gloves and pouted. Tito had a few harsh words for Roy, who turned and walked away, leaving Mercante to lecture Trinidad. When Mercante assured Jones he was fine and suggested he “shake it off,” Roy responded by grabbing the ropes and twisting his hips about. Even when the action was at a lull, Jones found a way to turn a booing crowd into a cheering frenzy. From that point on, both fighters put a little something extra on their punches, and some quality exchanges ensued. Trinidad caught Jones with a good straight right, but the bigger Roy showed a good chin by shaking his head in defiance. Tito finished with a good rally, especially to the body, that may have helped him pull out the round, but Jones was beginning to land flush almost at will.
Round six was going Trinidad’s way until Roy stepped in and backed him up with a sweeping uppercut and a short straight right in the corner. Tito slugged, bashing three unanswered left hooks into, through, and around a covering Jones’ glove. Roy’s rebuttal was to stick his head out and shake it three times, once for every hook. From there, Jones got off a five-punch combination that ended with two left hooks of his own to Trinidad. Tito threw a right hand, but Jones beat him to the punch with another left hook that knocked Trinidad back. Roy continued the combination punching, landing shots from both hands on the increasingly vulnerable Trinidad, whose face began to show the damage he was receiving. Jones stood and stared at the crowd following the bell while Trinidad started to walk away. Tito then stopped and hit Roy on the glove, perhaps wanting to just hit something. Jones mocked Trinidad by standing and pretending to kick dirt behind him in the direction in which Tito was departing, a symbolic gesture that told the story of how the fight was proceeding: a bigger, older dog showing he still had what it took to beat his smaller, junior rival.
Growing desperate but still not completely discouraged, Trinidad continued to try beating Jones to the body in the seventh round, but Jones took the punches well and answered with his own, mixing in shots upstairs, including a hard right hand that forced Tito to turn away before collapsing onto his hands and knees after a delayed reaction. Trinidad pushed himself back onto his knees but underestimated the effect of the blow he had received and had to stop and lean back, looking woozy. Tito made it back to his feet at the count of seven and tried hopping back into form. Jones then followed Trinidad around the ring, ripping him with some of his best shots for the remaining half of the round but failed to take Tito off his feet again.
With Trinidad in retreat mode, Jones inexplicably fought on even terms with his foe until the last minute of round eight when he began opening up Tito with some sharp punches. On his stool between rounds, Roy explained to Merkerson what Trinidad was doing to survive, another notable moment to support the idea that every moment in the fight, even in the corners, contained something worth mentioning. Jones beat Tito into a corner in the middle of round nine, but he wasn’t throwing with enough conviction to end the fight. In another flash of brilliance, Roy held up his right glove and ripped an unsuspecting Trinidad with a left uppercut that nearly took his head off, but Tito remained in the fight, trying to hang in long enough to turn things around with a big shot of his own. The problem was that whenever Trinidad went for that big shot, as he did on a straight right attempt, he got nailed two-fold when Jones blasted him with a sharp left-right combination. Roy wound up his right glove and attempted to throw his left, but the bell prevented that particular showcase from materializing.
Like a matador toying with a bull, Roy held up his right glove to lure Trinidad in before smacking him with a hard left to the face to begin round ten. Tito was being beaten but showed some life, beating Roy back into the ropes with shots to the gloves, but Jones came right back, stunting Trinidad’s attack with a pair of solid one-twos to the face. A stiff jab to Tito’s face saw his leg slip out from under him, and Trinidad caught a sharp right hand to the face on the way down that put him on his rear on the canvas in the center of the ring. Trinidad immediately leapt back to his feet as Jones walked away, talking to the roaring crowd about the second knockdown of the fight. Having survived once another hard round, Tito did his best to instill some fear in Roy by staring him down after the bell, but Jones responded by grinning as Trinidad waved him off and Mercante sent the fighters their separate ways.
With the fight virtually in the bag, Jones followed Trinidad around the ring, stuffing him with crisp shots for much of the eleventh round. Without fear of what was coming back at him, Roy suddenly got his jab going, keeping Tito at bay with it and scoring often as Hopkins and Winky Wright had done to shut Trinidad out years ago. A solid one-two from Jones nearly buckled Tito’s legs again. Jones then teed off on Trinidad with a terrific four-punch combination, but the dramatic knockout the fight needed to cap off a great show was nowhere to be found. The Trinidad fans were not without hope of a come-from-behind knockout and chanted their man through much of the twelfth and final round, but Roy had settled into his groove long ago and wasn’t going to let that happen. He raked Tito with a stunning three-punch combination before unleashing five or six consecutive straight right hands, most of which found their way to Trinidad’s head. Time eventually ran out on Trinidad, who wasn’t doing enough damage when he did land on Jones and probably let out a quiet sigh of relief when it was over.
One needed look no further than the countenances of both fighters to tell that Trinidad, sporting welts under both eyes, had been beaten up while Jones, his face unmarked, used his gloves well in defending himself while finding time to drill Tito with some clean shots. The official particulars were 116-110 twice and 117-109 all in favor of Jones in a fight that was exciting but probably not as close as the judges saw it. Although boxing pundits will never be able to say for sure what would have happened had Trinidad and Jones met up in 2002, one can quickly point to Roy’s lack of movement in this fight and say with some certainty that Jones would undoubtedly have been faster and therefore better six years ago before he made the perilous trek up to heavyweight and back down. While he didn’t come close to upending Jones, Trinidad probably did pursue the correct game plan and stuck with it for twelve rounds despite only achieving minimal success. In the end, Roy was just too big and strong for Tito to get anything done. There is no reason to think the same size disparity wouldn’t have played an important role in 2002 and perhaps served as the difference maker in determining the winner.
Whether or not Jones turned back the clock in this bout is difficult to say. Sure, he looked spectacular in eventually dominating a naturally smaller man who hadn’t competed in about two-and-a-half years, but whether he could turn in similar results against Hopkins or Joe Calzaghe, who fight one another in April, might be a different story altogether. Of course, Hopkins is even older than Roy, and Roy was, after all, able to handle Bernard without too much trouble back in 1993. More than likely, Jones will find himself across the ring from the winner of the April showdown, and though he might not be favored to win, it would be foolish to count him out.
