Let's Speak Frankly About Felix Trinidad

I think you're being generous sal.the very fact Oba Carr and the very limited Campas usually come up as two of his better ones says it all.Camacho was just a passable fighter there for the money by that time and Pea was far past it.The main thing that showed us was how tough Pea was.

Lueshing, Lovato, old Pendleton, Rodney Moore, barnes, anthony stephens, Luis Garcia etc

That is a very soft group of names.As far as dodgy competition in long title runs goes we're talking closer to Grigorian than Eubank if you get what i mean.The names a couple paragraphs back plus the DLH fight take it away from king artur territory, but it's still weak stuff.

 

Well, compared to almost any Welter champion of repute that managed to put more than a couple of defences together that came before him, for one.


It was an unspectacular grouping of opponents, flat out imo.

 

Wonderful offensive fighter. Loved watching him fight.

 

Those are some of the weaker ones as well for sure, but McGirt beat Brown who while in decline was better than any of Tito's clear wins(can't compare it to the eventual DLH fight imo)and he defended against Whitaker quickly.Likewise Honey with Starling and he had won the title from Curry and fought a prime blocker, albeit his defences against the two washed up junior welters were as bad as most of tito's.

Quartey beat Espana to win his title who was much better than a shot Blocker or anyone up until Oscar but i'll agree there anyway.His defences were mostly poor too.Carr was one of his most notable as well.

Brown had trice and a prime blocker, but wasn't that good otherwise, but he ties in with what i was saying earlier about titos run being more like the typical late 80s early 90s IBF stuff than someone getting all the hype he was accumulating.Brown was never rated nearly as highly as Tito(for right or wrong)partly because he hadn't fought the kind of fighters needed where people started to think about if he could have mixed it with the Leonards'Griffiths etc Tito going into the Oscar fight had a large contingent thinking him already on that level!

What i'm trying to get across (badly probably)is few Welters fought a softer run of competition while being built up like Tito was.This was something he skillfully avoided taking too much criticism for back in the day.Difficulty in making the fights with the other champs no doubt played a part in taking so many soft defences, but that's beside the point.

 

No.

Just No.

 

I think he's very overrated, the Pacquaio of his time, in that he'll look sensational against a lower level of opposition and brawling types but against elite level pure boxers just doesn't have the skillset to compete.

The wheels would have come off the bandwagon allot earlier imo if he had tried to unify with Quartey or Winky Wright or got the right verdict against Oscar or rematched Oscar

 

Agree, Trinindad was a little bit overrated in his prime.

Things like naming him P4P№1 or 2,
people thinking he would destroy Hop and eventually get Jones.

Exciting style and lots of KO's probably added to overrating him.

Disagree, Pacquiao is not overrated.

Though i get what you mean.

 

A better managed Margarito with a better punch and worse punch resistance , lower workrate and lesser stamina .
What a fight prime Margachito vs prime Chito would have been !
A fraud that still fools ppl 2 this day .

 

Tito was the man. He was just about everything you want as an entertaining, exciting fighter: Dangerous puncher, vulnerable/susceptible to knockdowns, and competing at a high enough level to pay for some of his faults, undeniable heart...

He was limited, but many greats are. So he had problems with mobility. One could name 5 ATG' who had the same problem. Getting knocked down, but getting yo in most cases to whip the guys ass? There are a couple more of those too.

The fact is, he was game, tenacious, had tremendous heart and pride, and produced some of the most dramatic moments I've seen in fights.

 

Tito's resume is 'ok', but really for the talent he had, especially at welterweight, it's pretty disappointing. For a guy (who I think) could have beaten the likes of Forrest, Mosley, Quartey, Jose Luis Lopez, he really did put together mediocre wins.

He got tremendously overrated when he moved up in weight and lost what actually made him such a tough proposition at welterweight (his size and power advantages relative to his opponents) but he still did fairly well considering his limitations above that weight.

To me, if he figures anywhere in a all time sense, it's probably outside the top 100, along with similar high level, dominant, yet mediocre resume guys like Jeff Fenech, Jung Koo Chang, Carlos Zarate, Orlando Canizales, that ilk.

 

Given that Quartey got rocked by left hook happy fighters like DLH and Lopez, what makes you think he does well with Tito?

I think Trinidad takes that bout without question. Especially with Quartey's tendency to wilt late.

Given 15 rounds, I think he takes care of DLH too. And boxer types like Buddy McGirt as well.

 

I think he was a great welterweight, in terms of ability if not resume. I consider him DLH's equal (at 147), and slightly superior to Quartey, Mosley and Forrest. One of the best offensive fighters of his era. And although people may write them off to a certain extent, I really like and rate his wins over Vargas and Joppy above ww. No-one else did to Joppy what Tito did, not natural mw's B-Hop nor Taylor. And Vargas was a good fighter back then, taking his zero and his heart was a genuinely impressive performance. Sure he got owned by B-Hop and Winky, but they were naturally bigger defensive specialists. I don't believe any ww of the past 30 years could've moved up and beat those versions of those guys at 160, you'd need to go back to Hearns & SRL before you'd have someone who could do it.

 

Trinidad vs prime Mosley - now that would've been a good fight.

And his balls!