Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes

Tito’s Dreaming
The subject of many rumors since his respectable effort against Roy Jones last January, Felix Trinidad finally is talking about his plans for the future. He wants to fight twice in 2009, and he knows exactly who he wants to face.

One of those fights may actually come off -- Bernard Hopkins. Particularly if he beats Kelly Pavlik in October, BHop will be looking to make a big-ticket bout for early ’09, and a rematch with Tito definitely would fit the bill. It helps that they’re both over the hill and both dwelling in the same weight class these days, the 170 territory, a fact that would go a long way towards getting the fight made.

Meanwhile, the weight issue already has proven an obstacle for the second fight that Tito wants next year – Oscar De La Hoya. As Oscar was scrambling for his December fight after the retirement of Floyd Mayweather, Tito’s name often was batted around by the Golden Boy team and by the media, but the question of the catch-weight always got in the way of moving past the speculation phase. Tito was firm that he wouldn’t drop below 164 pounds, and Oscar said he wouldn’t go any higher than 154. It’s hard to imagine either of them budging on that one anytime soon. Maybe, maybe, if Tito avenged his loss to Hopkins in dramatic fashion it would give Oscar some incentive to move back up to the middleweight limit to face him, and if he made that concession, I have to believe that Tito would cut the extra four pounds to get the deal done. Then again, if Bernard gets unceremoniously destroyed by Kelly Pavlik, does anyone care about a Trinidad/Hopkins rematch? In other words, there are a lot of big ifs in Tito’s tentative 2009 timetable.

Don Quixote Marquez
It seems that Juan Manuel Marquez’s pursuit of a third fight with Manny Pacquiao is moving into the tilting-at-windmills phase. Ricky Hatton has gone on record as saying that he’s got next as far as the winner of De La Hoya/Pacquiao goes, and with Hatton (looking very Fatton indeed) cozying up to Oscar ringside at the Marquez/Casamayor fight this past Saturday, one has to believe that he knows whereof he speaks.

It really is becoming VERY hard to imagine that Pac Man ever will find cause to finish off a trilogy with Marquez, for much the same reason that Oscar chose not to fight Tony Margarito despite the fact that it was the fight that all boxing fans wanted to see. Even Golden Boy CEO (Marquez is promoted by Golden Boy) Richard Schaefer acknowledged the unlikelihood of a third Pacquiao/Marquez fight this week, and it sounded more like a reality check than Manny-baiting when he said, “I don’t think Pacquiao wants anything to do with Juan Manuel Marquez anymore.”

It’s boxing 101 really. Why risk losing to a very tough opponent when there are much easier and much more lucrative fights waiting around for you out there? It’s clear that Manny and Marquez are about as evenly matched a fighters can be. They drew in their first bout and Pac eked out a highly controversial decision in the second. Both fights were rough, tough affairs and both could have gone either way on the scorecards. If Pacquiao loses to Oscar, I seriously doubt he’s going to want to risk another loss anytime soon by getting in the ring again with Marquez. And if he beats Oscar? Fuhgeddaboudit. He’ll be so huge that Marquez will seem like the tiniest spot on the face of the sun. First Pac will take Hatton in front of a bazillion fans at Wembley Stadium, and then after he wins that no doubt Floyd Mayweather will want a piece of the pie and a Manny/Money stratospheric superduper fight will get made. One imagines that Marquez will still be out there squawking about a third fight even at that point, but by then he’ll be reaching for what will truly be an unreachable star.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.