TRINIDAD LOSES BAD

**FUZO** · 01-20-2008, 01:06 AM

Jones wins easy decision over Trinidad By GREG BEACHAM, AP Sports Writer
3 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Roy Jones Jr. was just too fast, even in a fight that happened several years too late.

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Jones pranced and punched his way to a unanimous decision over Felix Trinidad on Saturday night, dominating a 170-pound matchup between two iconic boxers whose primes are well past.

Jones (52-4, 38 KOs), the sport's erstwhile pound-for-pound king, taunted the Puerto Rican champion while clowning his way through the early rounds of his first significant victory in four years. Jones then went to work, knocking down Trinidad in the seventh and 10th rounds.

The 1990s' most dominant boxer had lost three of his past five fights, but Jones still entered the ring wearing a gilded crown — and the 39-year-old's once-peerless reflexes and heavy hands were enough to beat another declining dynamo.

Trinidad (42-3) hadn't fought in 32 months since his second retirement, but Tito still is Puerto Rico's most beloved champion, judging from the frenetic support from the Madison Square Garden crowd.

But the 35-year-old revealed the rust many expected in just his fifth fight in 6 1/2 years, his first since a decisive loss to Winky Wright. Fighting 10 pounds over his highest previous weight, Trinidad couldn't match even Jones' diminished reflexes.

Though some boxing purists disliked such an obvious senior-circuit matchup with no championship stakes, the Tito-leaning fans at Madison Square Garden got to see a long-imagined matchup between two of the sport's most prodigious punchers.

It might have been the year's best fight — if the year was still 2001.