Felix Trinidad: What Are His Options?

By Boxing News - 01/24/2008 - Comments

trindad3535.jpgBy Chris Thomas: According to the final numbers, last Saturday night’s bout between former boxing champions Felix Trinidad and Roy Jones Jr. did remarkably well, selling more than 500,000 PPV subscriptions and making $25 million in domestic television revenue. Base don these numbers, it would seem to indicate that there is still an audience out there for both Trinidad and Jones, despite each of them being well past their prime as fighters.

For his part, the 39 year-old Jones has made it clear that he wants to fight either Joe Calzaghe, Jermain Taylor, Kelly Pavlik or Oscar De La Hoya. However, Trinidad, 35, has remained silent, saying nothing about his future plans. Before last Saturday’s bout, Trinidad had expressed interest in fighting De La Hoya, who many people feel has been washed up as a fighter for quite some time, perhaps even as long as Jones and Trinidad. However, it seems unlikely that De La Hoya will opt to fight a rematch with Trinidad, at least not now, because the latest rumors seem to suggest that De La Hoya is looking to fight a smaller fighter, someone like Paulie Malignaggi or Steve Forbes.

That’s not to say that De La Hoya won’t fight Trinidad in the future, because that seems like a fight that both of them are almost destined to fight. De La Hoya, perhaps, will want to settle business with Trinidad and try to erase his controversial majority decision loss in September 1999. It was a fight that De La Hoya was firmly in command of as the fight approached the later rounds, but for whatever reason, he avoided Trinidad in the last several rounds of the fight, running around and looking both frightened and tired.

So that fights out, for the time being. As for other options, Trinidad needs to consider losing more weight and trying to melt down to light middleweight, where he would have a lot more winnable fights. I’m hoping he doesn’t choose to stay at middleweight, because he doesn’t appear to have the frame to compete with the good fighters in that division. Sure, Trinidad just finished fighting a competitive fight with Jones, but that’s only because Roy is on his last leg, and isn’t capable of mounting a consistent offensive attack anymore.

However, if Trinidad moves down to the middleweight division, his options are rather limited. I don’t see Trinidad matching up well with fighters like Pavlik and Taylor, two of the biggest names in the middleweight division at this time. I do, however, think that Trinidad could beat John Duddy or Felix Sturm, the World Boxing Association middleweight champion. Neither of those bouts would be particularly popular in America, but they’d do really well in Europe. Trinidad couldn’t go wrong with either of them as an opponent, as both would help him stay active, while at the same time keeping him in the public light.

Ideally, though, Trinidad should consider moving down to light middeweight and fighting someone like Cory Spinks. He would be a good opponent for Trinidad, since he doesn’t have much power, and is more of a defensive fighter. Trinidad would give him big problems by applying steady pressure all fight long and I can see Felix getting the win by decision, or perhaps knockout.

If at all possible, a bout with Kermit Cintron would be even better for Trinidad. Cintron is a limited fighter, one that has knockout power but little else. Trinidad, if he can get down to welterweight or a catch weight, has the power to beat Cintron at his own game.



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