Tonight’s Felix Trinidad-Winky Wright pay-per-view middleweight bout is intriguing in its own right, but on this particular Saturday what it does most is cap a monumental week unlike any other in the history of boxing.
Hardly a day’s gone by that boxing hasn’t made headlines. It’s almost as if the sport — surprise, surprise — is relevant again.
It began last Saturday when boxing put its best foot forward in a bout that was billed as a Fight of the Year candidate but turned out to be a Fight for the Ages. Sacramento’s Diego Corrales stopped Mexico’s Jose Luis Castillo in 10 rounds in a brutal fight that showed off heart, courage, athletic skill and raw excitement in a way only boxing at its best can do.
Coming on top of the Erik Morales-Manny Pacquiao battle on HBO, the Corrales-Castillo war on Showtime gave boxing as much good-vibe momentum as it’s had in years. Clearly, a sport that might be dead if it weren’t for the advent of cable television and pay-per-view is still producing skilled and proud warriors whose battles mean something to modern society.
Two days later, Washington stepped forward and did its part in trying to bring boxing into the 21st century. The Senate passed legislation that would create a three-person federal commission to regulate boxing.
The House still must ratify the bill and it’s definitely not going to end all of boxing’s sad abuses of men who shouldn’t be fighting anymore. But at least it’s a step in the right direction and could curtail some of the corruption and carnival atmosphere that makes boxing its own worst enemy.
Two days later came a story that showed why the House legislation is needed.
Former middleweight and cruiserweight champion James Toney had tested positive for steroids and would be stripped of the WBA heavyweight title he won with an easy unanimous decision over John Ruiz. The bout has been ruled a no contest and Ruiz, who retired right after the fight and then mysteriously changed his mind in the interim, is again the WBA champion.
Although it illustrates a serious problem boxing has shared with other sports for years — yes, boxers have been using steroids for decades — this story is as funny as it is sad.
For one thing, it’s hilarious that the WBA would give Ruiz back his title after his uninspired performance. Losing to two former middleweight champions — Roy Jones being the other one — should disqualify any 240-pound heavyweight from being given a piece of the championship pie.
For another, consider that the 5-foot-11 Toney, who weighed a bloated 232 pounds the night he easily outboxed Ruiz, looked more like a guy who had been binging on Twinkies than nandrolone. It’s safe to say no man who has ever won a heavyweight championship looked more like a sumo wrestler than the balloon-faced Toney did that night.
Then again, maybe all that fat just covered up bigger muscles than Toney has ever had before. At the very least, the story sends the message that boxers who want to move up in weight without sacrificing anything will have to be as careful as major league baseball players if they want to use steroids to hit home runs in the ring.
Fortunately for boxing, there’s no need to dwell on the Toney-Ruiz aftermath. The Trinidad-Wright showdown tonight in Las Vegas puts the sport in the spotlight for all the right reasons.
This is a big-time non-title fight, the kind boxing rarely puts on because the best fighters avoid each other and go after all those alphabet-soup titles instead. Coming a week after Corrales-Castillo, it creates a bookend of high-profile fights between great fighters that illustrates a growing trend.
More and more, the best fighters are fighting each other again. Marco Antonio Barrera takes on Morales, who fights Pacquiao, who fought Barrera. Floyd Mayweather’s moving up and battling Arturo Gatti. The list goes on and on, at last.
Still, give Trinidad all the credit in the world for taking the fight. Of all the blockbuster boxers of the last 15 years, “Tito” has been most willing to fight anyone and everyone, from Pernell Whitaker to Oscar De La Hoya to middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins to wild-man Ricardo Mayorga.
This is a dangerous fight for Trinidad, who has returned from a 29-month “retirement” in hopes of winning the middleweight title long held by Hopkins, who stopped him late in their action-packed title fight. Wright is moving up from 154 to 160 pounds, but he’s the best junior middleweight in the world and his awkward southpaw style makes him a tough target for anyone, as Shane Mosley found out the hard way in two losses.
This fight can’t possibly live up to the expectations created by Corrales-Castillo, but it doesn’t have to. It’s just a link in a chain now, a link that includes the news Hopkins will soon defend his title against someone who actually has a real chance to beat him, unbeaten Jermain Taylor.
So the winner of Trinidad-Wright should fight the winner of Hopkins-Taylor. And boxing regains more credibility in the process.
“Corrales-Castillo continues the momentum boxing is building,” said analyst Al Bernstein, who worked the fight for Showtime. “The Morales-Pacquiao fight already ensured the first quarter would have a Fight of the Year and now this.
“I am not a cheerleader for the sport. I’m pretty objective. … The last five years, there were some hard times for boxing. So this is a good thing for the sport.”
Indeed, if Trinidad-Wright is just a decent fight, that will be good enough to wrap up a great week for boxing — politics, steroids and all.
