17.01.08 – By Frank Gonzalez Jr.: So, here’s another Pay-Per-View event that makes you wonder what the criteria is for fights being on PPV? Do we really care if a seven year removed former Welterweight Champion fights a four year removed former Light Heavyweight and “Heavyweight” Champion? This match up is unfair and irrelevant. Curious that its going to be on PPV instead of regular TV..
Would we buy a PPV that featured Lamon Brewster against Jeff Lacy? How about Jose Luis Castillo vs. Johnny Tapia? Hell, why not just go for the gusto and see if we can get Sugar Ray Leonard to fight Riddick Bowe on PPV. Not only are these guys past it (or never had it in Lacy’s case) but they’re not even in the same divisions.
Trinidad fought his best at 147 pounds. He will be fighting at 170 for this one, seven years removed from his prime. It would have been more interesting if both Jones and Trinidad were to fight at a catch weight of 165.
Before a mediocre fighter named Antonio Tarver knocked him out, Roy Jones Jr. was on top of the world, he was arrogant, talked in the third person and addressed his critics with words to the effect of; “If someone wants to fight me, let them get ranked to be my mandatory.” Roy was a businessman first, a fighter second. Low risk, high reward was his acumen. HBO facilitated this situation by paying him five million per fight against whatever second rate easy mandatory the sanctioning bodies managed to dig up. For Roy, HBO and the Sanctioning bodies, it was a great business.
In Trinidad’s last two fights, he beat an aging Ricardo Mayorga by KO back in October of 2004 and in May of 2005, he got beaten badly in every round by Winky Wright, who used basic boxing skills to completely dominate Trinidad and win a shutout decision. It’s 2008 and Trinidad has about two and a half years of ring rust gathered upon him.
Jones last two fights were against Prince Badi Ajamu, 18 months ago and unbeaten Anthony Hanshaw six months ago. He won both fights by unanimous decision. He showed a decent work rate and ability to out box these younger guys, but nothing spectacular.
After some much needed hype, compliments of HBO, Trinidad and Jones both made their remarks to the press. Both claim they will win by knockout and both say they’re in great shape, etc. etc. But let’s get real here, yeah, there might be some flickering interest out there to see this fight that could have happened seven years ago but this fight should NOT be on PPV. It should be on regular cable, maybe on HBO’s ‘Boxing Way After Dark’ program. I mean, how impressed can we all be by mere name recognition?
A great idea would have been to show this fight on regular network TV for free and promote the sport to casual sports fans that remember the names but have long stopped watching boxing for so many reasons. Maybe it could’ve inspired a renewed interest in boxing, if the under card featured some exciting fighters in their prime, instead of rehashed former contenders on the decline.
Now, Roy the businessman/fighter wants to send off his career with a bang…at the box office.
Trinidad and Don King will bank plenty of money for this one too, win or lose. And all for a fight that was never a good bet for Trinidad and a safe, easy win for Roy.
The only thing that would make this fight worth more than five bucks would be if Trinidad knocks Roy out in the first round. Somehow, I doubt that will happen. But you never know who will win until they meet in the ring—even when it’s at least seven years past being meaningful.
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