Felix "Tito" Trinidad - Has enough time passed to properly rank him?

Tito' career was alot of fun. @47 he had some good wins early in his reign beating , well destroying Blocker who had given Simon Brown a good fight. Campos was undefeated, Oba Carr was undefeated. Camacho still potent if not prime. Then a dip he finished strong.

H2H I think he is a tough out because of his size and quickness at 47. His power was legendary.

Anyone remember the Double, Double left hand combination he landed on Mamado Thiam? Left uppercut, left hook, followed by left hook, left upper cut.

 

Head to head he would be a factor I believe. Tito was 3-0 at Jr. Middleight. He looked good while he was there. Can't put him up there with McCallum or Hearns or even Jackson. After that though. He won a belt, defended once and unified. He didby waste anytime.

 

Yes I would stand by that. He is gonna struggle against certain quick boxers but @54 he still had the size and power to change the fight with one exchange

 

Trinidad was a good text book boxer/puncher, big power, killer instinct nothing flashy just well schooled but dynamic stylistic good fighters could beat him if they could take his power guys like Winky Wright were a good example now in a fight he could hold his own with any boxer puncher but a good tricky stylist could beat him. I haven't placed him personally yet I liked his butt whipping of Mayorga but he had a few too many controversies for example IMO ODLH got screwed and everyone seemed to know it

 

His knockout of Vargas was something to see. That was a helluva night in the boxing universe. That fight has everything including a dynamite left hook by Tito in the opening moments. It looked like to wasn't gonna go 1 round

 

Felix is hard to rank because the fight he was favored to win against Hopkins would have been his biggest and greatest win, and he lost it. It is hard to rate Tito in my mind. A great welterweight and solid 154 pound fighter.

 

I don’t even think it takes all that much trickiness to outbox Tito, tbh. Oscar did it with hand speed and lateral movement.

 

I wish people would stop adding sparring into the mix. Sparring is sparring, fighting is fighting. We have all heard these fantasy stories of some fighter holding their own against somebody in sparring and then getting annihilated in a fight. Stop, just stop

 

Is that what that was? From where I saw it looked like running. He was definitely moving. He wasn't fighting enough.

 

Trinidad was a better fighter early in reign imo, from Blocker onwards for the first couple of years/few defences. Set up his attack with more patience and intelligence and followed up with a more varied array of punches and combinations. I think he was a bit lighter on his feet too and didn't just plod forward in straight lines throwing hard and technically sound yet predictable blows like the later version. That Trinidad was a very formidable boxer puncher and probably a tall order for a lot of welterweights in history. He was pre-prime too, really, and probably could've developed further, but fell foul of blowing away soft, overmatched opposition for a few years and fell in love with his power as a result when he was in what should've been his best years. He was never going to be Robinson or Leonard in terms of all round ability. A few too many flaws for that type of status, but he regressed from about 95 onwards I think, albeit slowly and while still retaining his superb power and punching form. The overhyped rep of Vargas, the surprising blowout of Joppy, Whitaker being shot etc all disguised it a bit at various points but the warning signs were there even prior to the Oscar fight, which laid things a bit more obviously. Like Kev says, just basic lateral movement by that point and he could be troubled, whereas I don't think that was the case several years earlier despite him always being a bit susceptible to good movement.

 

Call it what you want, you'd be hard pressed to find more than 5 rounds to give to Trinidad imo. Oscar neutralized and outboxed him.

 

I am thinking about adding 100 meter sprinting vs 200 meter sprinting, to the mix comparison also.

 

Great post.