Félix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr.

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"Bring on the Titans"
230px
Date January 19, 2008
Location Madison Square Garden in New York, New York
Title(s) on the line None
Félix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr.
"Tito" "Junior"
Tale of the tape
Fajardo, Puerto Rico From Pensacola, Florida
42–2 Pre-fight record 51–4
5'11" Height 5'11"
170 lb (77 kg) Weight 169.5 lb (77 kg)
Orthodox Style Orthodox
Recognition

Félix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr., billed as "Bring on the Titans" was a professional boxing match contested on January 19, 2008. The non-title bout was fought with a catch weight of 170 pounds.

Background

In August 2007, promoter Don King announced a "dream match" between Félix Trinidad and Roy Jones Jr. with a date set for January 19, 2008.[1] Both men had become two of the most decorated fighters in boxing history, with Trinidad sporting a 42–2 record having won titles in the welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight divisions, while Jones was 51–4 and had won titles in four different divisions; middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight. However, the now 35-year-old Trinidad had been out of boxing for two and a half years after losing a lopsided decision to Ronald "Winky" Wright in May 2005. The 39-year-old Jones, meanwhile, had lost three consecutive fights in 2004 and 2005 and though he had won his two previous fights in dominating fashion, they had been against lightly-regarded opponents in Prince Badi Ajamu and Anthony Hanshaw. Nevertheless, the two fighters and King heavily promoted the bout as "legend vs. legend" with King declaring the upcoming bout "the most remarkable thing out of my 40-year career."[2] The fight was held with a catch weight of 170 pounds, becoming Trinidad's first and only fight in the light heavyweight division.

The Fight

Trinidad began the fight aggressively and won some of the early rounds while also throwing 552 punches during the course of the fight. However, Trinidad struggled to penetrate Jones' trademark defense and only landed 160 of his thrown punches for a 29% success rate. Jones, meanwhile, landed 172 of his 482 thrown punches for a 36% success rate. Jones also managed to score two knockdowns of Trinidad. With just under a minute gone by in the seventh round, Jones landed a short right hook to Trinidad's head that sent him to the canvas. Trinidad was able to get back to his feet at the count of eight, but was clearly dazed from the punch. Jones aggressively pursued Trinidad for the remainder of the round in an attempt to secure the knockout victory, but Trinidad was able to avoid Jones' attempts and survived the remainder of the round. Following the seventh round, Jones seized control of the fight and won the remaining five rounds on the scorecards. In the tenth round, Jones would score another knockdown over Trinidad late in the round after landing a quick left–right hand combination, though Trinidad would quickly get back up and survive the remainder of the fight. The judge's scorecards were one-sided in favor of Jones, who won by unanimous decision with one score 117–109 and two scores of 116–110.[3]

Aftermath

The fight was a box-office success, securing 500,000 pay-per-view buys and earning $25 million in pay-per-view revenue. For Jones it was the second highest-grossing pay-per-view in his career, behind only his heavyweight title bout against John Ruiz.[4]

The fight would also mark the final one of Trinidad's career. Trinidad was inactive for nearly two years as he contemplated whether or not to return to the ring before announcing in October 2009 that he was between 95 and 98 percent sure he was done with boxing.[5]

Jones would use his impressive victory to secure a high-profile match with the undefeated Joe Calzaghe, who was coming off a victory over Bernard Hopkins that made him the new The Ring light heavyweight champion.[6] The two were scheduled to meet on September 20, 2008, but the fight was moved back to November 8 due to Calzaghe suffering from a wrist injury.[7] Jones started off well, knocking Calzaghe down in the first round, but Calzaghe would dominate almost the entire rest of the fight, earning an incredibly lopsided unaninmous decision with three scores of 118–109.

References

Preceded by Roy Jones Jr.'s bouts
January 19, 2008		 Succeeded by
L12 Joe Calzaghe
Preceded by Félix Trinidad's bouts
January 19, 2008		 Retired
  1. ↑ King: Jones Jr.-Trinidad fight about 'two legendary fighters', ESPN article, 2007-08-22, Retrieved on 2014-01-12
  2. ↑ Fighting Before It’s Too Late, Jones Jr. Will Face Trinidad, N.Y. Times article, 2008-01-19, Retrieved on 2014-01-12
  3. ↑ Jones Knocks Down Trinidad Twice on Way to Victory, N.Y. Times article, 2008-01-20, Retrieved on 2014-01-12
  4. ↑ Trinidad-Jones a box-office success, Yahoo! Sports article, 2008-01-24, Retrieved on 2014-01-12
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Light heavyweight champ Calzaghe set to face Jones on Sept. 20, ESPN article, 2008-07-13, Retrieved on 2014-01-12
  7. ↑ Calzaghe's title defense vs. Jones postponed by injury, ESPN article, 2008-07-13, Retrieved on 2014-07-23
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