Felix Trinidad v Roy Jones Jr

[paulcooper4]

predictions lads?

I`m torn between jones on points or trinidad by k.o.

Cant sit on the fence so I will go for a Trinidad win by knockout. Roy`s defence is still very good but he is not as elusive as he once was and Trinidad can still bang.


It`s gonna be a beast of a fight (I hope!)

[felly]

predictions lads?

I`m torn between jones on points or trinidad by k.o.

Cant sit on the fence so I will go for a Trinidad win by knockout. Roy`s defence is still very good but he is not as elusive as he once was and Trinidad can still bang.


It`s gonna be a beast of a fight (I hope!)

Iv been predicting Jones to win since the fight has been announced, but for some reason iv changed my mind in the last few days.
Got a feeling Trinidad will stop Jones.

Hope its a good fight.

[bazza76]

Jones to stop Trinidad somewhere near round 7.
Finers crossed it is a good fight. Jones looks to have lost alot of weight for this one though, last time he did that he lost alot of power, hope it is not the case this time, still think he will have too much for Trinidad though.

[paulcooper4]

Hurry the **** up and knock the midget out Golota you big dope

[bazza76]

Hurry the **** up and knock the midget out Golota you big dope

did you see Golota's eye, yer man is bollocksed though

[bazza76]

ANALYSIS: TRINIDAD VS. JONES
Boxing is as much about vulnerability as it is about dominance and that is what is most intriguing about the Jan. 19 match between Roy Jones, Jr. and Felix Trinidad. Will they be dominate or vulnerable? Or will they be both?

Once each was the most dominate fighter in his weight class, feared by some and respected by all for their skills, their wills and their ability to break a man down before knocking him out. But time fades all things and in boxing when that process begins it seldom reverses itself. Thus begins a dangerous time for a fighter, one in which his view of himself does not correspond with what others now see in front of them. When two such fighters cross paths anything can happen but at the worst of it we witness mutually assured destruction.

That's what happened to Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in their third fight in Manila, a brutal confrontation in which both men lost. Even though Ali's hand was raised as Frazier sat nearly blind on his stool, saved from his own courage by his loyal liege Eddie Futch, no one but the public won that night. Two great men lost everything but their pride while the of us watch in stunned amazement.

In Jones' case, he was for years considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world as he made his way to world titles at middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight before a stunning fall to the ravages of age and his refusal to master the fundamentals of the sport led to back-to-back knockout defeats and three losses in his last five fights.

It has been nearly six years since the 38-year-old Jones has stopped an opponent, his last victim being Clinton Woods back on Sept. 7, 2002 yet he believes Jan. 19 will be a new day. Vulnerable or dominate? Who can really know?

The once reluctant warrior seems unable to leave the ring at a time when it has become a dangerous workplace for him. He insists, however, that his problems in recent years are all related to having built himself up to fight then WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz and then not given his body enough time to readjust to returning to a lower weight. The resultant fatigue, he now insists, is what slowed him down not age. Of course, when this possibility was suggested to him at the time he considered such talk nonsense.

That is to be expected because boxing, in the manner of many athletic enterprises is a sport where self-delusion is persistent. How else would one consider entering this most unforgiving endeavor in the first place? Perhaps then Jones will prove to be only the latest former champion to be blind to his own receding skills and slowing reflexes and suffer the consequences inherent in such a miscalculation. Then again, as he insisted in the days leading up to facing Trinidad at Madison Square Garden, he has always been someone who relished proving doubters wrong.

Trinidad is in a similar situation. At 35 he seems a far cry from the fearsome knockout artist he once was as the undefeated welterweight and super middleweight champion. He has lost two of his last four fights, fought only three times in the past 5 1/2 years and struggled with opponents bigger than he is, which Jones will be when they meet because he's the far more natural light heavyweight of the two.

Yet the flaws of both are, in an odd way, what makes the matching of them intriguing and potentially dramatic. That is how most boxers' careers - even those of the greatest practitioners of the bestial art - come to a close. With sad drama.

Both Roy Jones, Jr. and Felix Trinidad stand on the edge of that deep precipice, each hoping to force the other over the side while convincing themselves and the larger boxing public that they remain at least a long shadow of the fighters they once were. How many people are willing to pay to watch what's left of them walk that dangerous tightrope remains to be seen. Even though the Garden is as famous for the circus as it is as a boxing venue, fighters work without nets and not everyone wants to risk seeing the fall.

But the more significant issue for the public is what can they expect from two guys who are memories of what they once were but proud ones who are refusing to go quietly into that great goodnight that follows a long and successful boxing career?

"Trust me,'' Jones guaranteed recently with admirable bravado, "he is not going to go 12 rounds with me. I hear, 'If he does this and if he does that.' He may try to do all of that but he is not going to go the distance with me.''

Jones went on to claim he'd had to lose a good deal of muscle after dropping back down from heavyweight following his win over Ruiz and it was more taxing on his body than he anticipated. He admits now that he paid a price for that and the price was being knocked out by Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson in back-to-back fights before he lowered his expectations, as well as the quality of his opponents, lost again while in survival mode against Tarver and then won two lackluster decisions against lackluster opponents.

"It had been 106 years since a former middleweight champion won the heavyweight title,'' Jones explained. "There is a price to pay when you do something historic. People don't understand that. We have to pay a price for the things we do and a lot of times people don't realize that.

"Now I'm back. My body is back to where I want it to be and I guarantee he is not going to make 12 rounds with me. It will not last no longer than four rounds!''

Jones has some basis for that supposition despite his inability to stop anyone in six years and that's the fact that Trinidad was badly beaten by Hopkins before being stopped in the final round and schooled in one-sided fashion by Wright a year and a half ago. Both were physically bigger men and they imposed their will on him and he was unable to shake them or retaliate with the kind of punching power that had worn out so many smaller men before them.

Fighting only twice in the past six years (a stoppage of Ricardo Mayorga and the loss to Wright) has done nothing to re-hone his skills or convince most boxing insiders that Trinidad will find the Fountain of Youth at the corner of 31st and 7th Avenue. Yet when he looks at Jones he no longer sees the man who beat down Ruiz or beat up James Toney either.

What Trinidad sees is an old fighter with a weak beard, two things an aging knockout puncher in Trinidad's position might be looking for himself at this juncture of his career.

"Every weakness he will bring into the fight I will discover in the ring and take advantage of,'' Trinidad said. "He has trouble with punchers and I can punch. I come with only one bag into the ring. The bag of hitting you.

"I can beat him under 2 (rounds), under 4 or in the full 12. It really doesn't matter. He's just one more fighter to say something like that (that he'll knockout Trinidad). I don't care about what he's saying right now. I think I'm the better fighter. He made a promise that will not be fulfilled. It's impossible because I'll stop him in two.''

Talking is always easier than fighting of course and that is particularly true for these two at this point in their careers. Neither is what they once were but, again, that is the intriguing part of this because often times it is only when great fighters begin to slip that their new vulnerabilities fill their fights with drama and potential sadness while overlaying them with the grey fog of old memories and the hope that one last shining moment remains somewhere inside them.

For that to be true for the 35-year-old Trinidad, he must get to Jones quickly with enough authority to remind him that he is still a fighter who has seen the lights go dim on him more than once before the scheduled end of the night. There is a risk in that however because although Jones himself has never been the biggest of punchers, Trinidad's mandible has betrayed him before, although never as fully as Jones' did the night he lay quivering on the deck, his body literally knocked stiff by Johnson.

"One of his weaknesses is that everyone he's boxed that punches well knocked him out and I punch well,'' Trinidad (42-2, 35 KO) said boldly. "So let's see if he can stand in there with me.''

While that is a good question, Trinidad didn't come close to hurting Hopkins or Wright but then again, who has? Jones, though, has proven vulnerable to assault in part because as his reflexes slowed the technical flaws that he was always able to mask because of his superior timing left him vulnerable in ways he least expected.

Post-Ruiz, Jones has seemed content to spend too much time lying on the ropes, making him a less elusive target than he once was when it often seemed his opponent would need a banjo to hit him. If he takes that approach with Trinidad he will get surely be hit and what happens after that is one of the mysteries of the night.

Yet in the effort to land the kind of shots that can concuss Jones, Trinidad will have to open himself up as well and expose his own vulnerabilities. His defensive skills have never been overly impressive and even when at his best he has always been a one-dimensional fighter who prospered by coming forward and controlling space and the terms of engagement with his power. Absent that, as was the case against Hopkins and Wright, he became a catcher in a game that values pitching.

"He knows he's a power puncher and to get to another power puncher you have to be a power puncher,'' Jones (51-4, 38 KO) cautioned. "He's bringing his left hook to the game and he thinks he's going to knock me out if he can land it (but) I'm explosive with both hands so he knows he has to come in on top of his game.''

More than likely someone will be explosive enough to rid the arena of the other ahead of schedule because each man has shown a disturbing unsteadiness in recent fights when under heavy assault. Trinidad, to be honest, is no light heavyweight and has trouble with bigger men but Jones is no longer either an irresistible force or an immoveable object. They are still two dangerous guys but in a different way. Dangerous to each other but now also dangerous to themselves as well.

[bazza76]

I see you are gone to bed then coops, ****ing lightweight

[bazza76]

HAve to say, Jones looks drained, almost unhealthy looking. NOt far away now.

[bazza76]

First three rounds:
Trinidad doing most of the work, without really hurting Jones, Jones although not working as hard as Trinidad, is hurting Trinidad. On that Basis, I will give the first three round to Jones, Just given the fourth to Jones.
In reality though, I think it is maybe even as Trinidad is scoring points, evn if he is not hurting Jones.

[bazza76]

Fifth was a close afair, with a similar patern to the first four.
I am still talking to myself but dont care

[bazza76]

Jones showboating in round 6, hurting Trinidad again. same pattern as the revious 5 rounds.
I still have jones infront because he is hurting Trinidad more, which is what fighting is about.

[bazza76]

Tito down in the 7th, Jones hurt Tito badly. looks ominous from here on in for Trinidad.

[bazza76]

7th round looked like man against boy, Trinidad hurt bad, but got up to survive. Jones seemingly let Trinidad off the hook.

[bazza76]

Jones puts Tito on his ass again in the 10th, Jones looking dare I say it, back to his best, even if he is up against a much physically weaker opponent.
Would like to see Jones fighting someone like Calzaghe before he retiers straight after this fight, to see if he really still has what it takes.

[bazza76]

waiting for the result now, but it has to be an easy win for Jons, he really should have stopped Trinidad, and the difference between them was power, Jones has it, Tito had not. Man against boy out there tonight, and dare I say it, Jones looks like the Jones of old. But we will only truely know if he is bac if he fights someone like Calzaghe or Hopkins.
I will look forward to his next fight now, never thought I would be saying that again.
116-110,117-109,116-110 all in favour of Jones. Easy win for him and a good run out.