Felix Trinadad – A Cat With One Life Left?

22.03.04 – By Matthew Hurley – My cynicism knows no bounds and, perhaps unfortunately, it bubbles over into the one absolute passion in my life – boxing. I hate what boxing does to the majority of men who step into the ring. It’s a brutal, unfair sport in terms of how it ultimately treats the gallant warriors who give the fans their money’s worth and make other people rich. There are so many tragic figures in the fight game, victimized and tossed aside. Which brings me to Felix Trinidad and his proposed comeback.

When Trinidad retired after his last fight I was crestfallen, as many fight fans were, because “Tito” represented all that was good about boxing. He was exciting, he was a knockout artist of Thomas Hearns quality and he mingled within the elite and very small crowd of fighters that could create mega-fights that had the potential to cross over into the mainstream sporting world. Trinidad’s retirement was a huge loss for boxing. But I remember nodding my head and thinking, “good for him.” I appreciated the fact that he went out on top. Sure he had lost his first and only fight to Bernard Hopkins a year earlier, but to me I was really hoping that he would simply sail off into the sunset like Marvin Hagler or Michael Spinks did after losing to, respectively, Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson. Neither of those two hall-of-famers had anything left to prove and neither did, or does, Trinidad. His fans would miss him, but there was something nice about his departure. Something that apparently drove nefarious characters like Don King nuts, and how cool is that! It seemed appropriate and fitting. A gentlemanly exit.

Was it premature? Of course it was. But it reminded me of when Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders called it quits. I was saddened but, again, I nodded my head in agreement. There would be no sad finale. Just a quiet, elegant departure.

So now Trinidad is coming back and I’m left wondering whether or not I should be excited or disappointed. Quite frankly I’m a bit of both. I’m not really worried about Felix because despite his long layoff I don’t think anyone he faces, and he’ll only face the money making elite, can really slap a beating on him. Every fighter he proposes to face, with the exception of Winky Wright, are weather beaten. None of them are the same anymore. Not Oscar De La Hoya, not Sugar Shane Mosley and not even the apparently bionic Bernard Hopkins. They are all elder statesman now. Maybe not in age, except for Bernard of course, but they’ve been fighting for so long each one is ripe for the taking.

I’m not quite sure how things will play out now that Mosley has lost to Wright. I’ve always been a big supporter of Winky and I’ve always felt he would at some point be the spoiler in the junior middleweight – middleweight hierarchy. If Trinidad is to come out of retirement, without a tune-up, I hope he faces Wright. Winky, whether you like him or not and granted, up until his dismantling of Mosley he’s never been a thrill-a-minute kind of fighter, deserves the big payday. And he beat the guy Trinidad was supposed to fight, so logic dictates, right? But nothing is logical in the boxing world.

There are so many compelling match ups that can be made from welterweight to middleweight and boxing fans are salivating at the prospects. And Trinidad, who by the time he steps back in the ring, will be shaking off nearly three years of ring rust is suddenly the hottest name in the game. It seems rather strange that a man so long removed from the ring can still command so much power, but a star is a star.

Still, there’s that part of me that feels a little disappointed that “Tito” has returned. I have visions of Hagler sipping wine in Italy, leaning back in an easy chair, enjoying life and really only caring about boxing when he makes his yearly sojourns to the International Boxing Hall Of Fame in June. I’ve had similar visions of Trinidad in Puerto Rico – enjoying his life and awaiting his call to be inducted into the museum at Canastota. Whatever happens and whomever he fights, I’ll be watching and cheering, but they’ll be a bit of hesitation in every clap. Perhaps I care too much… but I love boxers, and that’s why I care.