by Andres Antonio Carriedo
10/8 - When a kingpin leaves his throne the wolves come knocking at the door. The most impressionable and probably visibly impressive way to reestablish dominance is to fight fire with fire and win in dominant fashion. Felix 'Tito' Trinidad did just that this past Saturday night. His 8th round TKO victory over Ricardo Mayorga can only be described as a power punching masterpiece. Tito is back and back in a big way.

Prior to the night of October 2nd, Mayorga was thought by many to be the biggest, baddest wolf at Tito’s door. Many fans and experts described him as “the most dangerous opponent” Tito could possibly have taken on, short of undisputed middleweight champion and lone Trinidad conqueror Bernard Hopkins. Against Mayorga, however, Trinidad dispelled any doubts about his superiority in the game of brutal fistic warfare. Mayorga proved that he has heart and is a tough SOB, but Tito left no questions as to who is the tougher and the stronger of the two unanswered.

However, the dominance and sheer excitement of Tito’s win brings us back to larger questions. Where does this put Tito in comparison to where he was when he left? Tito, after all, still is a relative novice at middleweight and did not even fight a true middleweight in Mayorga. For my money, I’d match Trinidad up with anybody at 160 and below not named Bernard Hopkins and feel extremely comfortable that Trinidad would come out of the ring victorious, but that is merely my opinion. Trinidad will have to beat the best to prove that he is the best, all over again.

In this day and age where most of the fans subscribe to the “what have you done for me lately?” school of evaluating professional athletes Trinidad’s comeback is being viewed in some circles in the same way that the ascent of an up and coming prospect would be. I’ve heard and read phrases like, “Let him prove himself,” “He needs to stay active” and “Let’s just wait and see, I’m not sold on him yet,” by people claiming that Tito does not deserve top 5 or even top 10 consideration at this point in time. Those are things one says about a prospect.

Surely an all-time great like Trinidad has moved beyond the point of proving himself, especially in comparison to Cory Spinks, Antonio Tarver, Winky Wright and Diego Corrales. Yet, all of the aforementioned boxers have leapfrogged ahead of Tito in the eyes of many fight fans based upon the strength of their last few fights. While pound for pound ranking are fun they are subjective and a certain amount of personal preference is involved in every set of rankings. So, is pound for pound prominence the area in question concerning Tito’s comeback objective? There are many other pieces to the puzzle.

If Tito is going to prove himself again to the boxing public what exactly should he set out to prove? The reported 400,000+ pay per view buys proved that Tito can bring the fans and deliver excitement. The devastating KO win proved that Tito still has deadly accuracy and power in both fists. The fact that he fought Mayorga in his comeback fight proved that Trinidad still has the desire and will to fight the toughest guys on the block.

The only real question might be whether or not he will try to climb the mountain known as Bernard Hopkins. For those who do not remember, Hopkins not only beat Trinidad, he put on a complete and thorough boxing clinic on the man whom most had ranked no lower than #2 in the pound for pound rankings. This cast a doubt on the great Tito Trinidad. That doubt has yet to subside, thus bringing us full circle to our current point of evaluation.

The wolves have circled and Tito is going to have to fight his way back to the top, again. At this time, I am reminded of a phrase Jim Lampley used a lot during the early part of this decade, “Betting against Felix Trinidad is a fast way to go broke.”

Trinidad is back, and I wouldn’t recommend betting against him. For those who still doubt his abilities, sit back and you will be pleasantly surprised at just how much talent the man known simply as Tito still has.

A certain amount of uncertainty can lead to mixed emotion and uneven interpretation, but no message was clearer than the one Trinidad sent to the boxing world from his spot in the center of Madison Square Garden. His vicious and masterful power punching display showed the boxing world that when the wolves come knocking Tito will be reading and waiting.

Contact Andres at aac7@georgetown.edu



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