Jones Trinidad: Is This Fight Worth $49.95?

Like many people, you might be asking would be interested in forking over $49.95 to watch former champions Roy Jones Jr. (51-4, 38 KOs) and Felix Trinidad (42-2, 35 KOs) go at next week on January 19th, at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. Much as this fight would have been an intriguing bout around 10 years ago, when both Jones and Trinidad were in their prime, it’s hardly interesting to watch either of them know that they’re badly faded as fighters.

Trinidad, who turned 35 today, has done little in the ring in the past seven years, fighting only four times and losing half of the bouts, both resulting in retirements on Trinidad’s part. In his last bout, Trinidad was beaten by Winky Wright, losing a 12-round unanimous decision on May 2005. The loss was made worse by the fact that it was completely one-sided, with Trinidad losing almost every round of the fight. He looked old and shot, even then, and he doesn’t figure to have gotten any younger since then. Of course, Wright, a fighter with excellent defensive skills, is the type of opponent that would give almost any fighter big problems. However, instead of moving on and continuing fighting, Trinidad retired for the second time. Not something that exactly made him look good to his many fans. Trinidad’s fan, however, are quick to forget his defeats and the way he gave up boxing afterwards.

Trinidad, though not the same fighter he was earlier in his career when he was a welterweight champion, still probably is a dangerous fighter if he has someone standing directly in front of him, trying to slug it out with him. However, if you put Trinidad in with a fighter with any kind of movement, like in the case of Jones, he’s going to have big problems. Jones, 39, is not about to stand in trade with him for any length of time, as that’s simply not something he has the tools to do. For that reason, Trinidad is going to be out into a situation where he’d going to have to stalk Jones all night long, for if he doesn’t, he’s going to experience another humiliating defeat like in his losses to Bernard Hopkins and Wright.

However, at least Trinidad is up front about his losses to Wright and Hopkins, not making excuses for losing. Unfortunately, in Jones’ case, he’s still blaming his losses to Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson, both of whom brutally knocked Jones out, to him having dropped a lot of weight after trimming down from heavyweight to light heavyweight following his win over John Ruiz in a successful 2003 heavyweight title shot, a bout in which Jones won the World Boxing Association heavyweight title. It seems as if Jones has a hard time accepting the fact that he was soundly beaten by Johnson and Tarver.

You would think that Jones would have gotten a clue by now, especially after narrowly defeating light heavyweight Anthony Hanshaw in Jones’ last bout on July 14, 2007. Hanshaw is certainly no scrub, but he’s also no where near championship material, which made Jones look bad because he had to struggle hard to win the fight . Even then, the bout looked more like a draw then any kind of legitimate win for Jones. His reflexes were gone, as well his handspeed, work-rate and foot movement. Jones, like in his fight with Glen Johnson, was reduced to laying on the ropes, and trying to counter punch.

It was a sad sight to see, as most people remember Jones from his days when he danced around the ring, making his opponents miss while hitting them with blazing fast combinations. I suppose Jones can blame it on the weight loss, but if that were the truth, one would think that his speed would have come back by now. I mean, a weight loss of the type that he experienced after the Ruiz fight would have only effected him for one fight, and from then on he would have been fine. It wouldn’t, however, be still haunting him five years later, causing him to look old and slow in his fights. No, that’s just age that Jones is experiencing, not any kind of after effects from trimming down.