Looking forward to some discussion this evening, JXM. Here's the latest Michael Katz article on the fight:
Out of the Overshadows, Here Come Trinidad and Joppy
by Michael Katz
NEW YORK, May 11 - The ticket sale is over 15,000. There'll be at least 17,000 fans in Madison Square Garden tomorrow night for a William Joppy fight. Okay, most of them will be there rooting for Felix Trinidad Jr., but it's still very impressive considering the pay-per-view show has been overshadowed all week by its own promoter, Don King.
King has emerged as the leader of the pack of promotional wolves who have been competing for the heretofore much ignored services of Hasim Rahman. And while he has apparently gained his piece of the Rock, and the biggest share of the heavyweight title, King has been quiet about it.
Okay, he has laryngitis.
But he also has not wanted to "usurp" any attention from his middleweight tournament. Trinidad fights Joppy tomorrow night, the winner meets Bernard Hopkins, who beat Keith Holmes last month, on Sept. 15 in another pay-per-view show.
There was no buzz last month. There'd be no buzz for the finale Sept. 15 if Joppy wins tomorrow night, which is hardly beyond the realm of imagination. The reason there has been no halting the gate sales is that this is a Puerto Rican town and Trinidad is a Puerto Rican hero.
Maybe a thousand fans showed up in Bryant Park this afternoon for the official weigh ins of the pay-per-view portion of one of King's better cards (9 P.M., Eastern time, $44.95). Most were Puerto Rican.
"Viva Puerto Rico, viva Puerto Rico," has been King's calling card for a couple of years.
That's when Mike Tyson went to prison and Julio Cesar Chavez grew old. The promoter did not have much else. I remember in 1995, one of Trinidad's agents at the time, a longtime King ally named Yamil Chade, begged for sympathy "because he's treating us like a preliminary fighter." Chade, who hadn't spoken to me in years, wanted my aid in giving Trinidad better support.
This was right after Tyson was released from prison. His former sparring partner, Oliver McCall, was defending the WBC heavyweight championship against Larry Holmes. Bruce Seldon was beating Tony Tucker for the vacant WBA fight. Terry Norris was disqualified for the second junior middleweight title fight in a row with Luis Santana. Chavez was beating Giovanni Parisi of Italy. Trinidad knocked out a legitimate welterweight contender, Roger Turner, in the second round and the result wound up on the cutting-room floor of the New York Daily News, my employers at the time.
Trinidad has been escaping overshadows ever since, though his father, trainer and manager, Don Felix Sr., has twice tried to run from King, twice been talked into staying loyal. Money buys happiness in boxing.
Tito is somewhat of an acquired taste. There is nothing dazzling about him, no combinations that make you think of Sugar Shane Mosley or Roy Jones Jr., his only two rivals now for best fighter in the world. His punches are hard and accurate, not fancy. He has been troubled by movement. He gets knocked down. You know him: He comes forward, gets hit, goes down, gets up and wins, goes back to Puerto Rico. He is "creeping death," a locomotive that just wears down opponents. No one gets stronger with the rounds as he does.
He has been a world champion since 1993. I was never that impressed. He beat a guy skinnier and older than him in Maurice Blocker. for that first title, the IBF welterweight. He beat an assorted variety of challengers - the old like Hector Camacho, the young studs like then-undefeated Yory Boy Campas. But he was rocked by Anthony Stephens and Kevin Lueshing, making one wonder just how good he was.
Pernell Whitaker, well past his prime, gave him problems for a while, making one wonder just how good he was.
Oscar de la Hoya gave him trouble early, making one wonder just how good he was.
Or was it just that pound for pound, Trinidad was too few pounds, weakening himself by making the 147-pound welterweight limit?
From the beginning of his pro career, Trinidad has been suffering knockdowns. Only a couple of times, though, has he ever appeared hurt - against Stephens, against Lueshing. I'm not concerned about his chin.
He took everything from de la Hoya and was coming on at the end when the Chicken opted to run for the last 3 1/2 rounds rather than be knocked out. That was Trinidad's last start at welterweight. He zipped through the junior middleweight division last year, dropping David Reid four times and Fernando Vargas five, perhaps ending those youngsters' starry futures. He's 39-0 with 32 knockouts, fighter of the year in 2000 and like Fast Eddie Schuyler says, "Until he loses, I'm not picking against him."
Neither am I. But I'm not picking him by knockout, not against William Joppy, hardly spectacular himself, but a professional prizefighter who has been a middleweight since turning pro in 1993.
Joppy has a chance. It wouldn't shock me if he jumped on Trinidad and knocked him out early. It's possible. Unlikely, but possible. It may be Joppy's best chance. It doesn't figure he's going to get a decision in New York against a Puerto Rican idol. "I know I'm not going to win a decision and you guys know it," he told the press.
He's not a real puncher, though he has 24 knockouts on his 32-1-1 record. The loss was an insult to boxing - a decision at the Garden to another Latino, Dominican-born Julio Cesar Green. He talks passionately that this is his chance, at age 30, to become "marquee."
But I have my doubts about him, as well. If he were really a special fighter, and I believe you have to be special to beat a Trinidad, it would have been established by now. He's a good fighter. Good fighters don't beat great fighters, unless they have the perfect style - Joppy can move, Trinidad has had trouble with movers.
Eric Bottjer, one of Cedric Kushner's matchmakers, has been on a roll (unlike Kushner himself), predicting the upsets of Marco Antonio Barerra over Naseem Hamed and Hasim Rahman over Lennox Lewis. He thinks the winner of tomorrow night's fight beats Hopkins, which would be one heck of a triple. He said Hopkins is "a shot fighter, he's tough and he's in condition, but his reflexes are gone." Bottjer gives Joppy a big chance against Trinidad.
Me, I think Trinidad as a middleweight is going to be the best Trinidad there's been so far. I see him beating Joppy, getting past Hopkins, and even beating Roy Jones Jr., who has far superior talent, but who may have forgotten how to train for a real fight.
Or Joppy could knock Tito out in the second round.
Thanks to Rahman, it is easy again to remember that this is not a fixed sport.
ON THE HOUSE: Trinidad came in at a solid 159 1/2, Joppy at 158 3/4....Chris Byrd weighed a surprisingly high 217 1/4 to Maurice Harris' 224 1/2 for their scheduled 12-round IBF heavyweight eliminator. The winner is supposed to face David Tua for the right to be the next challenger to whoever is champion by then. It's a nice fight, should go the distance. Harris is the bigger puncher, but I don't think he can hurt Byrd and I think the slick southpaw will gain the decision....Vernon Forrest was a well-trained 145 1/4 to Raul Frank's 147 for their second try and filling the IBF welterweight vacancy created when Trinidad first moved up to 154. They banged heads accidentally the first time; this should be Forrest's crowning moment, maybe around the sixth round....The pay-per-view part of the show opens with Christy Martin (144) in the first major women's fight against Kathy Collins (142 1/2). Forget Laila Ali and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde. These ladies can fight enough for me to make my first pick in a women's bout - Collins in a bloody eight....Doors open at 6:30, first bout is 6:45 and King has put on some nice prelims, including unbeaten Don Felix Sr. protege Daniel Seda defending a minor featherweight title against former bantamweight champion Nana Yaw Konadu of Ghana....We'll also get to see Michele Piccirillo of Bari, Italy, (no, you don't want to spend your vacation there), who should be next for the Forrest-Frank winner, against Elio Ortiz of Venezuela....And it'll be fun to see the old joint jumping again. |
