I don't even know what to say about this:

It's no secret I am a fan of boxing.  Actually it might be a secret seeing as how I don't know you most likely.  But I am.  There is nothing broadcasted, and I mean this with complete sincerity, that evokes more emotion out of me than boxing.  Much like Rob from High Fidelity, I can link events in my life with the fights I've watched in my life.  I'm not just a fan of boxing, I am child of it.  In my family there were only two sports that were on TV whenever family was around: basketball and boxing.  While basketball is a beautiful exhibition of team of and individual efforts, the important games only come once a year.  With boxing, every other month there's something to get worked up about.  The past few years have seen a resurgence in what made me fall in love with the Sweet Science to begin with.

There have been incredible brawls that have left both men losing and winning at the same time.  Calculated matches that have had some of the most technically beautiful boxing to be seen, yet not appreciated.  Boxers come with stories once again, and pre-fight hype plays out to be a savage soap opera I can't pull myself away from.  It's a good time to be a fan, an excellent moment to be a student, and a great age to be a fighter.  For me, boxers encompass the most admirable quality of sports: the belief and faith of one's skills and training.  Basketball, football, baseball, and soccer players all have off days.  Sometimes teams unite and pick up the slack, creating a grand moment of team work and brilliant chemistry. 

Boxing doesn't have that luxury.  There are trainers who will try to prepare you as much as possible.  Promoters that make sure the public is interested in your skill.  Managers who try to set up the most appealing match-up that can be found.  But in the end it is completely up to the boxer.  There have been moments when a boxer has gone completely against what has been planned months before the fight and what is told between rounds; the results have gone either way.  No matter what your corner is yelling it is only you in that ring and you can't pass your gloves off to a teammate.  You have put yourself in this position, and only you have chosen how well prepared you are.  There is no being benched for being lazy during training, only getting knocked out for being lazy during training.  The fight tonight is a perfect example of why I chose to watch two men trying to kill each other . . . in the most civil way possible of course.

Roy Jones Jr. is 39 years old.  As far back as I can remember in all my years as a fan of boxing, his greatness was never questioned.  A man who lowered his shoulders, put his hands behind his back, shrugged a bit and bam, a fist in your face.  He moved so fast that fights almost seemed rigged, to the layman's eye at least.  But to the boxing fan, you know that technically Jones was incredibly flawed.  His hands are always down, he moves to the inside of a fighter, he advances when an advance isn't needed, and so on and so on.  What he did have, however, is an amazing physical talent that went unrivaled, or continues to be unrivaled, in the ring.  The man's hands moved as quickly as you blinked, blink too much and your eyes won't open for a while.  When he moved inside he would slide to the outside almost as if he teleported.  Jones was often compared to animals when he boxed, strutting around the ring like a rooster, prepping a pounce like a panther, moves that just shouldn't, couldn't have worked.  Unless you're Roy Jones Jr.  Now the old man comes back to the main stage tonight after beating two nobodies in the last year, and losing to less-than-spectacular Antonio Tarver (Sylvester Stallone kicked his ass in Rocky Balboa) and Glen Johnson (yeah, exactly).  Though tonight he faces Felix "Tito" Trinidad, 35, and a fellow future hall-of-famer.

To the general public, Trinidad first made his splash when he beat Oscar De La Hoya in what has to be in the top 10 of sports mistakes.  De La Hoya, thinking he had done enough and ahead on the cards for most of the fight, suddenly stopped fighting, Puerto Rican boxers don't stop fighting though.  Trinidad, known throughout the sport as a hard hitting scrapper, laid into De La Hoya's body for 5 rounds causing enough damage to the Golden Boy to take the title and put Puerto Rico on the map again.  He's cut out the lights with a wide left hook and destroyed short-term memories with quick rights throughout his career.  Though unlike Jones, Trinidad has retired, twice, and in the last five years only fought twice.  The first, a stoppage victory against Ricardo Mayorga (think street thug with gloves) and a loss to eternal contender Winky Wright.  While that doesn't sound as bad as Jones, there is a catch:

Tonight's fight is at 170 lbs., the heaviest Trinidad has ever been, and the lightest Jones has been in a decade.  Jones, the naturally larger fighter, is predicting a knockout within 6.  Trinidad says he could win in 2, 4, or 12, but a win regardless.  So why watch two fighters who are way past their prime without any real chance of rising in skill again?  Simple, this is what boxing is truly all about. 

There are no belts, there is no promise of a fight with a champ for either, there is only tonight.  Jones wants to show the world that his previous losses were flukes, that he had dropped in weight after winning the heavyweight title too soon and this seriously affected his speed and strength.  Trinidad, as great as his reputation is, has a resume that many could see as lacking.  Why not take this moment to try to beat the man who was pound-for-pound the best fighter to be found for well over a decade?  This isn't the time to setup the future, but only to correct the past and enhance the present.  Boxing is at its greatest during two situations: two champions proving who really should be called champ and two men with nothing to lose.  Ali-Frazier III in Manila is known as one of the most hyped matches in history, but it was also one of the most violent matches of their careers; a night when both fighters lost and won at the same time.  More recently there was the Gatti-Ward trilogy.  A literal war between two men spread throughout three fights.  Arturo Gatti, a former champion and "coulda-been" against journeyman "Irish" Mickey Ward, a man who had nothing to lose except his reputation as a fighter who would not back down.  The three fights were some of the most beautiful, bloody messes that any fight can could have hoped for. 

Do yourself a favor, you don't have to order the fight tonight, it'll probably replay on HBO next week, but watch it somehow.  Tonight has all the makings for something special and how often do you really get to see that in sports these days?

-Chuck

p.s "And while your nose is drippin, and draining blood, I'll be standing over you screaming 'Nigga, what?!'"