Trinidad Wants Bout With Calzaghe

In an indication of over reach on his part, Felix Trinidad (42-2, 35 KOs) is already looking past this Saturday’s bout with Roy Jones Jr. at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, saying that he wants to fight Joe Calzaghe, the World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion, next. First of all, not many people are giving Trinidad, 34, much of a shot at beating Jones, 39, as Trinidad hasn’t fought in two and a half years, even then he lost a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision to Winky Wright in May 2005.

Apart from that, even if Trinidad does indeed beat Jones this Saturday, why would Calzaghe be interested in fighting Trinidad? He already has a lot of other more appealing fights that Trinidad, with Hopkins first up on the agenda, taking place on April 12th. Beyond that, Calzaghe has options for fighting Kelly Pavlik, Jermain Taylor, among just a couple. It seems mighty presumptuous For Trinidad to assume that Calzaghe would want to look in his direction. I could understand it, though, if Trinidad were to totally dominate Jones, possibly knocking him out in quick fashion, and then follow it up with another impressive victory over a named opponent.

The fight, naturally, would be hugely popular on the East coast, where Trinidad could count on a large number of his Puerto Rican fans to attend the bout. I don’t doubt that Calzaghe would make more money of the fight than he has throughout most of his career, fighting mostly B-level fighters in Britain. Still, I have my doubts he’d be interested in fighting Trinidad unless a lot of different factors came into play within a very short period of time.