JONES BEATS TRINIDAD IN DESICION VICTORY

NEW YORK - Jan 19, 2008 - by Ron Borges | Photos by Will Hart

Old men can fight too, just not like they used to.

Roy Jones, Jr. and Felix Trinidad came to Madison Square Garden Saturday night willing to do what they could and had they never been what they once were what they accomplished would have been satisfying to the 12,161 who gathered at the Garden to observe them. But these two were once titans, as promoter Don King kept insisting all week, and that was the problem. Now they are not.

Jones hammered out a clear unanimous decision, dropping Trinidad twice and dominating the second half of the fight with both his superior speed and a distinct advantage in size and strength but not so many years ago he would have never let Trinidad off the hook from those knockdowns.

As for Trinidad, he boxed well enough. Just not well enough to beat a man who was bigger and stronger, not to mention still faster even though the 39-year-old Jones was four years his senior.

Once Jones became sure of his size and strength advantages by the end of the sixth round he opened up and took over the evening, knocking Trinidad down in the seventh round with a right hand to the temple and again in Round 10 with a quick, left-right combination that stung more than it hurt but still sent Trinidad onto the seat of his pants more from the speed of the punches than from their power.

By the final rounds, a beleaguered Trinidad had to make a difficult choice. He could take a great risk and try to land the kind of left hooks that won for him on so many nights of his youth or he could accept the reality of what he no longer seemed to be and box only to survive. In the end, that was the choice he made and, frankly, who could blame him?

"I can't believe he stayed in there 12 rounds with me,'' said Jones (52-4, 38 KO) after judges Nelson Vasquez and Tom Kaczmarek had seen him a 116-110 winner and Julie Lederman had taken it a step further and scored it for Jones 117-109.

"He was slipping some really good punches and I was missing knocking him out by an inch. He's got a hard head.''

Perhaps Trinidad does but Jones also no longer has the blinding quickness to follow up in the way of his youth. At 39, he remains fit, fierce and fast but not the man who had dominated his sport until three years ago when he was knocked out by first Antonio Tarver and then Glen Johnson. He was an old titan now, which is to no longer be a titan at all.

"No excuses but I took two years and eight months off,'' said Trinidad (42-3, 35). "Ray was very fast and strong, he showed speed and he took my best punches. I take nothing away from him but if I could have avoided the knockdowns I think I could have won the fight.''

That's like General Custer saying if he knew what Sitting Bull had in mind at the Little Big Horn everything would have gone differently. It may be true but it's meaningless, the kind of thing a guy says without thinking.

The fact was as the fight wore on and Jones began to realize Trinidad could not hurt him nor contend with his strength, he inexorably closed the distance. The more he moved in, the less Trinidad threw to the body, as he had done effectively in the first half of the fight, and the less he threw the more he got hit until boom! - he was down.

"He took a lot of punches,'' Jones said of Trinidad and CompuBox's statistics seemed to back that up. Over the last seven rounds Jones landed nearly twice as many power shots (97-52) after the two fought dead even through the first five rounds in what would prove to be the fight's most significant statistic.

Jones was his usual cautious self as the fight opened and Trinidad took advantage of that, doing just enough to stir the highly partisan crowd of 12,162 by landing several flurries and a string of stinging lefts to the body. Late in round 2 Jones finally stirred for the first time himself, landing a solid right hand that Trinidad answered with a left to the body and a right that just grazed Jones' chin at the bell. It did not go unnoticed by the crowd or Jones, who stared a hole through Trinidad before he walked back to his corner.

Trinidad began to move ever closer with Jones doing little but moving and looking to land a lead right hand, which he didn't do often enough in round 3. Trinidad hit him repeatedly with the jab and that left to the body and Jones finally responded by wiggling his hips and taunting Trinidad but he refused to be baited into doing anything he chose not to do and Jones seemed disinclined at that point to try to alter the pattern the fight was falling into by opening up his own attack.

Jones used that right lead more effectively in the fourth round, although he again spent much of his time lying against the ropes or slowly circling like a man who understood he could no longer move like the fighter of his youth. Conserving his legs seemed of paramount importance but more and more Jones looked like an old crooner who knew he can no longer carry a tune for very long and so spends much of his time on the stage talking rather than signing.

As Trinidad continued to belt him to the body, Jones tried to change the tempo by moving forward more but he did it without risking much by moving his hands, thus making the exercise somewhat futile until late in the sixth round when he suddenly came alive.

After spending much of that round somnambulant, Jones landed two right hands behind a lead left and then another left hook that thudded into Trinidad's face. As Trinidad tried to retaliate, Jones drilled him with a right hand for good measure, a series of punches that were the first reminder of who the four-time world champion once had been.

Round 7 seemed to be going along fairly quietly until with about 90 seconds to go Jones unleashed a short right hand to the temple that landed flush. Trinidad backed up two steps and then suddenly dropped straight to his knees without Jones moving a step closer to him. Trinidad seemed shaken as he watched referee Arthur Mercante count but he slowly pushed himself up and worked his way through the rest of the round without further damage but Jones had seen what he'd been waiting more than half the fight to be sure of. He was the stronger man.

Now he began to close the distance more and more and stayed within punching range. Jones was now doing the stalking as Trinidad constantly circled and retreated. Trinidad still threw to the body but Jones walked ever forward, a bully now sure that he was carrying the superior firepower and trying to get into position to unleash it again. Clearly more sure of himself, Jones began to potshot Trinidad, snapping his head back with a quick left uppercut late in Round 9 and then coming back with a rapid-fire left-right combination that left Jones smiling as the bell sounded.

He had reason to smile by the time the bell sounded to end the next round for he had again caught Trinidad with a hard left jab that drove the former welterweight backwards and then down on the seat of his pants so quickly the right Jones threw behind it missed the target, although at first it didn't seem so. That was only because Trinidad went backwards so quickly it appeared his boxing shoes had wheels on them that had suddenly hit a patch of oil just as that left creased his features.

Again he was up quickly but with two rounds to go, Trinidad was now falling so far behind that he had to put himself at further risk to try and punch his way back into the fight against an opponent who was clearly stronger than he was and whose hands were now quicker as well.

As the final round approached, Trinidad sat on his stool with the look of a man who knew how this was going to end - with him on the wrong end of the scorecards. He and Jones twice slapped gloves at the start of the final round but only Jones was grinning. Trinidad was grim, uncertain now whether to risk it all or to contest himself with accepting defeat.

In the end, Felix Trinidad chose the latter. He boxed the last round not to win. Or rather not to lose on the floor. Having to know he needed a knockout to have his hand raised in victory, he instead took no risks, choosing to avoid the indignity of a possible third trip to the canvas, or worse.

In the end, that may have been a wise choice because as the fight wore on into its second half, he was simply not big enough or strong enough to hold up under the assault of a bigger and faster opponent. It was not the kind of bold choice Felix Trinidad would have made in his youth but this was not a youthful warrior in the ring any more. It was an old gladiator who knew what he was facing. Another old gladiator but a bigger one.