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.
However, minus that, Trinidad would be not even in the running for a potential bout with Calzaghe. if the fight were to take place, Trinidad would likely be hopelessly over his head against the larger, faster, high volume-punching Calzaghe. It would be a match in which Trinidad would have only one option – he’d have to score a quick knockout or else he’d get pounded into submission much in the same manner that Jeff Lacy did with Calzaghe.
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.
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