It’s 25-1 versus 25-2. It’s a 29-year-old against a 28-year-old. It’s a snarling Essex son of a legend against a pretty-boy darling of California. It’s speed against strength, finesse against grit.

It’s everything you want from a big fight in Las Vegas.

But there’s a hitch when it comes to this WBC welterweight title fight.

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It was September 27 in 1986 and Tony Sims was in his flat in Bethnal Green, in the East End of London, working on the doors while, 3,000 miles away, in Atlantic City, Lloyd Honeyghan was wrecking the world of Donald Curry.

Curry was perceived to be the world’s best fighter but the wild ‘Ragamuffin Man’ backed himself, even supposedly wagering $5,000 on victory, when he produced what is still seen – 40 years on this month – as the finest win scored by a British fighter overseas.

“I remember it,” smiles Sims. “No one gave him a shot, did they? No one even knew he was in America at all. And obviously he won the European title in Britain. But outside of that, no one knew he was over here. Going into that fight and all everyone talked about was that his [Curry] speed and his left hook. Even when you watch the fight on the telly, they talk about, ‘Oh, we don’t think Honeyghan’s going to be able to get out of the way of his left hook.’ And that’s all they spoke about. And it’s funny because it’s 40 years this month that that fight happened.

“And I remember it clearly. And I remember Mickey Duff talking about the fight and [being] confident that Honeyghan was going to beat him and Honeyghan was confident. I remember all that. And then he just went in there and just took him apart. There was no respect. He jumped on him from the bell. That’s exactly what Conor Benn’s going to do as well.”

A month before the fight, publicist Irving Rudd called the Boxing News offices and said of Lloyd: “Who is this guy, how can I sell him?”

“Lloyd facing his toughest test” was the coverline of the Boxing News preview issue on September 26, 1986. The headline inside simply said: “King Curry looks much too sharp for Lloyd.”

Curry was brilliant and many thought unbeatable as the undisputed champion at 147lbs.

There was early talk of him being “a modern great” in Tim Mo’s preview and while he pointed out Honeyghan’s form leading into the match, he surmised: “Honeyghan looks able to give what the Americans may find a surprisingly good account of himself for the first four or five rounds but somewhere before the halfway stage a vicious shot from Curry will have his legs buckling and from then on the writing will be on the wall. It looks like those three titles will be staying on the other side of the Atlantic.”

**

A week later, with the cover of Honeyghan celebrating under the headline “World of his own”, was a report headlined “Super Lloyd hits Curry for six.”

Rudd, the Top Rank publicist, was now well acquainted with exactly who Honeyghan was.

“I’d come here to win, not mess about,” said Honeyghan.

Tony Sims said they’ve had a productive five weeks in the US, sharpening the tools for Garcia.

There are echoes of Honeyghan-Curry: the title, the weight, the nationalities, the odds…

And Sims couldn’t be less fazed by being the underdog.

“We had a really good camp. You know, it’s been quite amusing listening, watching everybody on social media,” he joked. “Because all the narrative’s been about just Conor Benn’s weight. Even Garcia, that’s all he spoke about. He didn’t speak about nothing else but Conor Benn’s weight. But Connor Benn, anyone who knows him personally, he’s been getting this weight off four months ago, mate.

“He’s been walking around at this weight for the last two months. Before we started sparring, even, he was already down. So there’s absolutely no problem whatsoever with his weight. He’s absolutely as strong as a lion.”

Sims said Benn deliberately released pictures of him looking slender and gaunt as a ploy, and that the bait has been gobbled up.

“He’s done all that on purpose, Conor has,” Sims explained. “He’s made the narrative that he can’t do the weight. He’s had [coach] Dan Lawrence on him for months and months, doing his calories. He’s absolutely as strong as a lion. He really is.”

It was in April when Conor Benn fought Regis Prograis and won a decision over 10 rounds.

It’s a fight Sims was not a huge fan of, but it made financial sense and so they moved ahead and then moved on.

“I got a phone call six weeks out from the fight, when he wasn’t even in camp at all, saying, ‘I’m fighting Prograis in six weeks’ time.’ So I went, ‘You are joking.’ And then he told me how much money he was getting for it, because I would never have accepted that fight.

“He was nowhere near, anywhere near doing 150. And he [Prograis] was a southpaw as well. He [Benn] ain’t sparred a southpaw for four years.

“But, listen, the money talks at the end of the day, so we had to take the fight. But he was nowhere near prepared to go into that fight and lose that weight. It was a ridiculous amount of time that we got to do that.

“This is different. He’s been on this for months and months and months. This is a different kettle of fish altogether.”

Many years ago, Tony would tell me about how hard Conor Benn worked. He said about him staying back to “do the extras” after training, and what he meant by that was an extra ab circuit, accessory work, a few more rounds shadowboxing. It was the optional homework after school not everyone chose to do.

Did Sims believe that, as he invested time into a fighter so many doubted, it would pay off in such a fashion as it has this week in Las Vegas?

“You don’t know where you’re going to get with any fighter, Tris, no matter who they are,” Sims says. “If they’re top amateurs, you never know, because anything can happen in boxing and it’s a long old road and journey to get to where you need to be. So you never know that. But what I can say is he worked extremely hard to get where in position he’s in now and extremely hard and had 10 years of absolutely gruelling, gruelling grind.”

Benn’s Donald Curry is Ryan Garcia, the flashy Californian with the good looks, the rapid left hook and fast hands. Asked how highly he rates Garcia, Tony says “good fighter” three times in his opening sentence.

For good measure, he adds “top amateur”, “WBC champion”, but here comes the caveat.

“I just don’t think he’s a true 147 fighter. He was talking about after [Mario] Barrios fight, before this fight was made, to drop him back down to 140. Because if you look at his performances at 147 against Roly [Romero] and Barrios, like, I don’t really know. The jury’s out on him at 147. I mean, against Roly, he was absolutely shocking. He got put down and against Barrios, I mean, what can you really take? Everyone’s going on about a Barrios fight. What can you really take from that? Barrios looked like he didn’t want to be there at all. Bearing in mind, Barrios, just the fight before, drew with a 45-year-old Pacquiao who hadn’t boxed for years. What are we actually talking about here, do you know what I mean? He quit against Tank [Davis] with a body shot. Don’t care what anyone says, you go down from a body shot, you stay there on one knee… I’m not really sure. I’m not really bothered about it [how good Garcia might be].”

One thing Sims has unflinching belief in is his fighter’s ability to handle the neon lights of Las Vegas when he gets down to business against Garcia on Saturday night.

Benn has shown to have his dad’s snarling temperament and is always ready for a fight. Sims saw that when he was a sparmate of Nigel’s many years ago.

“Oh, yeah, he’ll absolutely love it,” Sims said of Benn striding out at the T-Mobile. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the same as walking out on White Hart Lane, is it? Do you know what I mean? 60,000 people. Obviously, there’s a smaller crowd here, but it’s still a great thing to fight in Vegas, WBC title. Obviously, [it’s] the biggest fight of his career. So he’s going to love it.”

(Garcia-Benn pictures courtesy of Zuffa Boxing)

It sounded like there was a significant British contingent at the public workouts this week. Sims said there were still more fans to come, especially after the air traffic control shenanigans through the UK that saw Sims’ family delayed getting to Vegas and this writer having to abort his scheduled trip.

“There’s loads over here,” Tony adds.

“I know there’s a lot of landing today and Friday. There’s going to be loads over here, I think, by the sounds of it.”

Asked what it was about Benn and why his popularity has not only endured but accelerated in the last two years since the enormous controversy and scrutiny he came under following the clomiphene issues, Sims believes it was the fighting heart he showed in the first Eubank fight that endeared him to the masses.

“I just think people all want to criticise him because of what his name is, because he’s Nigel Benn’s son. They all want to give him loads of stick for anything he does,” Sims says.

“That’s the trouble with social media, it’s good for one thing that you’re advertising yourself, you’re putting yourself out there and you get all these followers, but on the other hand, then you’ve got to take the abuse as well off of everybody when you do one thing wrong, and that’s the problem with it. Listen, I think people took to him after the first Eubank fight because everyone wrote him off saying a welterweight can’t beat a middleweight and he’s going to get stopped. He got Fight of the Year, and I think after that fight, everyone realised he does fight with his heart on his sleeve. Every time he fights, you’re going to see an exciting fight. It’s not going to be like a Roly and Ryan Garcia fight where they jump 10-foot away from each other and don’t throw any punches. You know what you’re going to get with him. On Saturday night, you know what you’re going to get. He’s going to come out and Garcia’s getting it stuck on him. Do you know what I mean? People think that Garcia’s going to knock him out. I just don’t think he carries the firepower to do that. I really don’t… 147… I just don’t think. When Conor had been fighting Eubank, I had him in with super middles and light heavies for that fight because Eubank’s really a super middle. I just don’t see him putting a dent in him, really. That’s my opinion, obviously. I just don’t see Garcia hurting him at all. I just think he’s going to break him up.”

**

Tony Sims said he will have strong words with Thomas Taylor about Saturday’s rules of engagement. He doesn’t want Garcia to run or to hold. Sims said he will make a point of speaking to the official, because of Garcia he added: “as soon as someone gets near him on the inside, he’s like an octopus, just wraps his arms around you. We ain’t come all this way, thousands of miles, to be held to death in a fight. We want this to be a proper fight. That’s my only concern about Garcia.”

It was nearly 20 years ago when another British idol, Ricky Hatton, suffered from Joe Cortez’s constant interventions against Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas.

But Sims said of Taylor, who refereed Benn’s Sin City fight against Peter Dobson, “He’s a top referee.”

Taylor also did Garcia’s fight with Barrios.

Sims remembers 1986, when he was in his flat and he heard the news that Honeyghan had bested Curry in what is still rightly heralded as a one-of-one win by a British fighter overseas.

Danny Williams beat a faded Tyson. Randolph Turpin beat a disinterested Sugar Ray. Lennox was favoured to beat Holyfield.

But Sims reckons Benn beating Garcia in Vegas will go up alongside all of them.

“If Conor Benn pulls this off on Saturday night, that’s got to rank alongside what Honeyghan’s done. Because I ain’t seen one American press person, or British one really, that’s favouring Conor Benn to win this fight. Only the only people who are favouring him are people who actually know him. But no other fighter, not one person, is fancying Conor Benn to do this. So when he does do it, he needs to get that recognition what he’s done here. He’s done what Honeyghan’s done. He needs to get recognised that this is a massive upset what he’s going to cause here Saturday night.”

I can’t say there has been a boxing occasion I can think of where those who are planning to attend expect to be reduced to tears.

Sure, sometimes boxing makes you want to cry. Sometimes it makes you want to bang your head against the wall.

But on Saturday, I’m expecting close-ups of weeping fans, and of the bottom lips of Eddie Hearn, Brian Peters and, yes, even Katie Taylor, to tremble.

For it is this weekend, at Croke Park, no less, where the Irish heroine will bow out of professional boxing.

Aged 40, she has nothing left to prove, little left to give, but she wants the sign-off of her dreams. She wants to bring together a nation that already adores her for a celebration, and it’s likely to be emotional.

Her opponent, France’s Flora Pili, has a cursory walk-on part in the elaborate production, but there is no mistaking what the 80,000 in attendance want and expect to see.

It is all about Katie Taylor.

It is her night, her send-off, her farewell.

*

“I’m actually blown away by the support, to be honest,” Taylor said on a recent call with about a dozen media members, myself included. “We weren’t really sure how the ticket sales were going to go and so to wake up to the news that 80,000 tickets were sold and that was 17 minutes or whatever it was. I was just… I’m blown away by the support and it’s been an amazing few weeks and just an amazing few days. Even on that tour bus going around the country and just going around all the local radio stations feeling the excitement for people. I think it was around that time I realised this could actually do okay, I think, but I never really expected it to sell as many tickets. I really couldn’t believe it and this is beyond my wildest dreams at this stage.”

Taylor has lived out her wildest dreams.

Her list of achievements is just about as long as anyone’s in boxing and there are really no boxes left to tick. She’s boxed on a Mike Tyson bill, she’s avenged her only loss, she’s headlined twice at Madison Square Garden, she’s set record after record and won belt after belt, but one dream seemed almost unreachable, and that was Croke Park.

It was manager Peters who called her with the news.

After Taylor’s last fight, the more comfortable of the three wins over rival Amanda Serrano, she spoke to the team and said she might not fight again, unless they could do it at Croke Park.

Peters said he’d give it “one final shot” and the addition of influential music promoter Peter Aiken swung momentum their way.

Then, Peters made the call.

“I still pinch myself that this has actually happened, to be honest, because obviously you know yourself, politically it’s been so hard to get this fight over the line and I lost hope so many times over the last few years that this is actually going to happen,” Taylor said.

“And so to get that phone call that we actually got over the line… this is the stuff of dreams. It’s the fairy-tale end I always wanted. And it’s been just amazing preparing for this fight over these last few weeks. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.

“I think after the last fight, I was thinking what else is there to chase after really, and what can get bigger than Madison Square Garden and the only thing that I could think of is Croke Park… or maybe a big fight in Las Vegas or something like that, but actually I can’t believe I’m actually here talking about a Croke Park fight, to be honest… I had basically retired after the last fight and then my manager actually rang me up and said, ‘Croke Park is actually going to happen’ and, yeah, I mean this is stuff of dreams.”

**

It is hard to find the words to describe what Katie Taylor means in Ireland, but over the years, it is the thoughts of her peers that – without fail – have rung in my ears the loudest. Paddy Donovan, Tyrone McKenna, Andy Lee, Mick Conlan, Adam Olaniyan, Carl Frampton… they are unified in their unwavering belief that Katie, who used to have to dress as a boy to get fights as an amateur, is the best of all of them, and in every way.

You could almost imagine Irish boxing stars forming a guard of honour for her on Saturday, such is the reverence she has.

But you couldn’t tell that.

As Peters always says, she’s the same girl now as she was then. Money, fame… no change.

Just Katie.

That is a significant reason why Brian is so proud and why, at the press conference to announce the event, he wept like a proud father-of-the-bride at a wedding. Many have joked that Brian will never live that moment down, so it only made sense that I asked Katie about it.

“I said it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Brian getting emotional,” she smiles of the man who’s been with her since the start. “Actually I finally broke him is what I was saying to him. I think he’s getting a lot of stick from that!”

Taylor took the question how it was meant, a loosener, but then also did not fail to follow up because she understood all too well where the tears had come from. It is the end not just of her journey but their journey.

“I think that just goes to show how much it actually meant to him,” she continues. “And he worked so hard on this himself over these last few months to actually get this over the line and we’ve been speaking about this maybe for the last four or five years. I don’t think people outside of Ireland really understand how much Croke Park actually means to us, and the history behind Croke Park and, politically, it has been so tough to get this done. So it meant so much, the fact that we’re actually there on the top table at this press conference actually announcing that the fight has actually happened. And what an amazing response about this event as well.”

***

In 2016, armed men stormed a weigh-in at The Regency Hotel in Dublin and one man was shot and killed and two injured as the Hutch-Kinahan feud escalated into more bloodshed.

Boxing in Ireland slowed to a virtual standstill and only recently have the wounds begun to heal, a decade on. Ironically, this event is happening now Kinahan is home, in Portlaoise Prison, having been extradited from a Dubai jail having been wanted by US and Irish authorities for years.

Last month in Ireland, Callum Walsh returned from the USA to share top billing of a show that saw Aaron McKenna become the IBF’s middleweight champion, and the week before that Pierce O’Leary and a host of young Irish stars played to a full house at the 3Arena.

There is a renewed buzz around the sport in Ireland now, and after Taylor mentioned politics, I followed up by asking her where she felt Irish boxing was now, in comparison to 10 years ago.

“Yeah, Irish boxing is in an amazing spot right now,” she says. “I’d say even 10 years ago when I did turn pro, we weren’t even having these big bills, big shows at home. It was very hard to get a boxing show in Ireland during that time. My first homecoming fight was obviously against Chantelle Cameron that time a few years ago [2023]. But that was even a big ask to get that big show back home. In the last few years, Irish boxing has been booming and we have a lot of amazing talent.”

On Saturday, fresh life should be breathed into a new start. It might be the end for Katie, but this is a launchpad from which Irish boxing can take itself into the next generation, with the likes of Bobbi Flood and Olaniyan on the undercard.

****

Croke Park has its own mythology attached to it and so does Taylor. Combine the two, and something special is coming. From Muhammad Ali’s victory over Al “Blue” Lewis in 1972 to the great bands who have played to packed houses.

For Taylor, it’s the GAA and the Hurling finals she remembers most, waiting to watch them on RTE, who have completed a rights deal with DAZN to screen the fight to every home in Ireland. Katie went to some of those games and experienced the atmosphere. It’s not lost on her when she says: “The Croke Park events are very, very special.”

Even at the press conference, as she walked around the cavernous stadium, she was saying to herself: “I can’t believe I’m going to headline here.”

Katie admits she has thought about this a lot in camp, about how it’s the final chapter. She knows she will have to hold her emotions together.

“I have a fight to win here,” she adds, narrowing her gaze. “I have a fight to prepare for. But I don’t know if there’s any way of actually preparing for that moment, though. I just have to live it and deal with it as the night goes on. I think it’s going to be a very, very special night for not just Irish boxing but just for Ireland as a whole. I hope this night’s going to be a night that people remember for many, many years to come and obviously the most important part of this night is that I get my hand raised as well at the end of this night – and I have a job to do. I have a job to focus on and I have to just focus on that.”

It is all too easy to forget about bridesmaid Pili. The 29-year-old is 12-0 (2 KOs) and has the chance to make a name for herself while making herself the most hated woman in Ireland.

*****

As we go through the call and my colleagues prepare to ask their questions, Taylor answers them all with kindness. When she goes to BBC Sport, it’s: “How are you doing, Katie, all well?”

“Yeah, not too bad, David, how are you?”

“I’m not too bad.”

She entertains everyone with civil chat, and that is, shall we say, less common among the stars these days.

But she tells David that she is trying to enjoy the journey to the final fight. She is taking time to take it in and appreciate it.

“I said to my coach a few weeks ago when we actually started training for this fight, ‘This is going to be the last time we’re here in the gym together, let’s enjoy it, let’s enjoy the last fight.’”

But, make no mistake, in case David started to feel the sentiment: “I’m giving it my absolute all one last time, the training camp has been tough as it always is. I’ve put my body through the trenches as I always do. I’m preparing for a huge battle on fight night, so training camps are very, very tough. But yeah, I am definitely going to be looking forward to just enjoying the moment and enjoying my life after the sport as well – because my whole life has been one big training camp and so I’m looking forward to just relaxing and taking it easy after this fight.”

She also knows that Pili is coming to trash the party. Taylor called Pili a “real threat” and, truth be told, with Taylor’s mileage and after all of the hard fights, anyone could be a threat.

Part of the Taylor lore has been the legendary battles, the epic exchanges, digging deep, going to the well. If it doesn’t run dry against Pili, it would do soon.

With that in mind, Taylor warned against complacency and said she was too experienced to take her foot off the gas, anyway. It indicates that she is ready for one last push.

******

Taylor smiles and even jokes that she’s enjoyed doing media this time around. While she’s not strictly a recluse, she wouldn’t go to the opening of an envelope, as the saying goes.

It is about embracing the experiences and holding onto the memories to cherish when she’s no longer doing it.

While she admits she will miss the intensity of the gym, she knows the pressure and expectation on her each and every time is burdensome. Yes, she’s always expected to win, but so much more of her is expected. She’s expected to be Katie Taylor everywhere she goes, and that’s a privilege, of course, but it doesn’t make things easy.

Of course, she has a family to share that with. They have been “bombarded” by ticket requests. Even some of her most ardent fans, who have previously-travelled to watch her, have been unable to get a hold of the hottest ticket in town.

Taylor pauses and calls that fact “very sad” but then switches her gaze to the outpouring of love that she has felt by the desire for everyone to be there, to support, to celebrate, and to say goodbye to a boxing treasure.

********

Katie smiles when she recalls the tour bus around Ireland after the fight was announced that she “felt like one of those pop stars going around on a tour bus for a few days.”

“But,” she adds, “there’s times I was waking up I didn’t even know what country I was in. It was such a busy few days but definitely, during that time, I felt the excitement for people and the buzz around the country.”

As she discusses this part, it makes you wonder why she doesn’t like doing much media. She’s not bad at it. She has all of us eating out of the palm of her hand.

That comes with her charm, but also the fact that we know the journey and respect the adversity she has quietly crashed and bashed her way through and the unassuming way in which she has so gracefully and violently done it.

Now she can see the next generation coming through, including managerial-stablemate Tiah-Mai Ayton.

“I think it’s some of the talent I’ve seen, it’s absolutely remarkable and even looking back on my start of my career having to pretend to be a boy just to get a few fights, women’s boxing is such a sport in Ireland, and women’s boxing was included in the Olympic Games, but here we are,” she says. “It’s been just amazing progress of my generation and I’m so excited to see where women’s boxing will be in actually 10 years’ time because these young girls coming up are absolutely phenomenal.”

Katie remembers her debut. She was 15 when she fought Alanna Audley Murphy in the National Stadium. That was the start of women’s boxing in Ireland. She had been going to the gym with her father and brothers for years before that, and that is when she had to pretend to be a boy, to get some experience.

“It’s been just an amazing journey looking at it all really,” she admits. “And that first night against Alanna, we both made history and that was the start the doors opening for women’s boxing in the country.”

Of course, the ride, through the amateurs and pros, has been laced – at times – with uncertainty, even down to the will-she/won’t-she of Croke Park.

“I’m sure there’s moments where I probably lacked motivation sometimes or whatever but I don’t think I ever fell out of love with the sport for long periods and I’ve obviously faced disappointments before in my career, and heartbreaking moments – and the ups and downs of the boxing life against the ups and downs of sport – and I think the closest I’ve ever been to quitting the sport was when I found out that women’s boxing wasn’t going to be included in the Beijing Olympics [2008]. That was probably the closest I’ve ever been to giving up. But thank God I pushed on and I went for another few years to actually get to London because I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about this amazing fight on September 5th… I obviously dreamt of becoming an Olympic champion as a kid and that came to pass and I think these last 10 years, I don’t think in my mind I had the capacity to dream these things and headline an MSG on a couple of occasions and just having a career… and having the impact I have had over the last few years has been so special. I’m definitely walking away with a grateful heart after September 5th and what a privilege it’s been to be able to have such an impact on the world of women’s boxing.”

The call nears its natural conclusion. Taylor has camp to return to, I’s to dot and T’s to cross.

But the other writers and I can’t stop thinking about the night, about Croke Park, about what it will feel like.

Of course, not even the world’s finest sports psychologist could put Katie in a room and have her visualise what she will see when she steps out from behind the curtain or the noise that will greet her when her fans see that final ring walk.

Katie has allowed herself to consider what it might be like, but never for too long. Pili must be her priority.

“Every now and then I have,” she says when asked how she will feel on Saturday night, when all of Ireland comes to a proud standstill. “But it’s not something I think of too often. I never thought about it too often in my previous fights. This is very, very different because I know this is going to be my last walk to the ring and so I have to hold the emotions together, focus on the job at hand. I can get emotional after the fight.”

(All photos courtesy of Matchroom Boxing)

LONDON – Tonight, at London’s O2, Moses Itauma and Filip Hrgovic contest the IBF’s vacant heavyweight title. The belt was previously worn by Oleksandr Usyk, but he has relinquished his championship hardware while retaining his status as the best fighter in the division.

Itauma-Hrgovic had already been made. It was supposed to be the next step in Itauma’s evolution, to see if he would be ready for a world title in a fight or two. The IBF, even though this fight had been made, ordered Itauma to fight Frank Sanchez for the vacant title but Queensberry, which promotes Itauma, made the phone calls and paid the money, Sanchez stepped aside – and lies in wait for the winner – and now Itauma-Hrgovic has a title attached.

It feels like a big fight in the UK. It might be big in Croatia. I’m not sure Itauma is moving the needle yet in the US, but if he wins, and wins well, the momentum will continue to grow for the 21-year-old.

Here, ahead of their bout on DAZN, are 10 questions about the fight and the future.

Why is there hype about Moses Itauma?

The list here is pretty long. We heard about him from sparring tales initially, really, of him as a 16-year-old tearing into then-world cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie. We’ve not heard anyone say he’s easy work, or that he’s not really bloody good.

Then you factor in the highlight reel. Itauma has fighters losing their legs, doing funny dances, and the gap in class between him and those he has faced has been staggering. As with Mike Tyson – and we will get to this – it’s not so much who he has beaten, but how he has beaten them.

Finally, Moses has come along at the perfect time. We all see Joshua-Fury now as a tiresome final cash grab. Usyk wants one more big financial bonanza. We want shiny and new. We are all ready for what comes next. And who doesn’t love a dominant heavyweight champ?

How did the Itauma hype get this big?

Read more

The world was a different place 25 years ago but this weekend’s bout between unified junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas and Jaron “Boots” Ennis evokes memories from then.

At the Barclays Center in Brooklyn instead of Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, a Philadelphia fighter who has not quite broken out into a crossover star meets a popular Puerto Rican who evokes the passion of a nation.

You might wonder where you’ve heard the story before, Puerto Rico vs. Philadelphia in New York.

Well, a quarter of a century ago, in the grand finale of Don King’s middleweight boxing tournament, Philadelphian Bernard Hopkins upset both the oddsmakers and King with a 12^th round stoppage of Puerto Rican hero Felix Trinidad.

Despite having moved up from welterweight, and although Hopkins was a career-middleweight by that point, Trinidad was the red-hot favourite.

They produced one of the great fights and great nights of the era.

*

(Photo: Programme and ticket purchased on the night by the author)

Bernard Hopkins-Felix Trinidad was more than a fight and you don’t say that lightly or for the sake of coining a cliché.

The fight had been pushed back a couple of weeks in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks and it was the first significant sporting event in New York after the tragedy. America was raw and I know because I was there.

I was on the outskirts of Atlantic City when the planes struck and looked out from the trailer where I was staying to see flights urgently being grounded at the nearest airport.

I’d got in from a run and turned on the news to see that the first tower had been struck and I watched in utter disbelief as live pictures showed the second hit.

For someone who wouldn’t go out of his way to be a patriot, being British and all, I felt patriotic in the weeks that followed. America came together. Now that sounds more clichéd than saying Trinidad-Hopkins was more than a fight but it was like that. I still hear Americans talk about that time and I remember the defiant flags outside the houses and seeing them being waved from the vehicles. I had been up on the Towers just a few days before, eating pizza with my ex-girlfriend who had come out to see me during one of my boxing trips around the US. We ate at the Top of the World restaurant, of which the remnants would have been on the ground-floor a week later. America was raw and it grieved.

Even when they said Trinidad-Hopkins was back on, it felt too soon.

But it also felt like it was now written that Hopkins would win. That wasn’t a boxing hunch, that was a life hunch. Fate replaced odds. Self-belief replaced knockout power. Destiny trumped youth. For it was Hopkins’ faith in himself that allowed him to use the fate of some 3,000 victims into fulfilling his destiny. Because B-Hop was galvanised.

He was naturally rebellious, anyway. Of course, he’d made headlines in the press tour when he grabbed the Puerto Rico flag from Trinidad in San Juan and threw it on the floor. Not only did he have to then be pulled away from his free-swinging opponent, but he had to be evacuated amid riotous crowd scenes. There were many who thought that both the battle and the war between the two fighters was won and lost then. Trinidad lost his cool and never regained it.

Hopkins’ then adviser, Lou DiBella, said at the time: “Tito being ticked off plays into Bernard’s hands. Bernard wants Trinidad to run across the ring and start winging bombs. He wants to get right on Trinidad’s chest and stay there. He doesn’t want Trinidad to fight from range, at which he’s most comfortable. So what’s the best way to do that? By getting into the guy’s head and making him crazy.”

Hopkins reckoned he saw fear in Trinidad’s eyes, even though it was he who was supposed to have trepidation around the heavy hands of the Puerto Rican KO king.

But Hopkins summed it up when he said: “I don’t have to treat Trinidad nice. I don’t have to treat his country nice. I don’t like his family. I’m not supposed to like him, and I don’t want him to like me. Does that make me a devil? I’m a fighter. I’m ready to go to war. This is no fun and games.”

**

I went to Madison Square Garden to watch the fight with light-heavyweight great Matthew Saad Muhammad. We went up in Saad’s battered old Cadillac and I was amazed that both he got us to where we needed to go and that the car made it. I still have no idea how we managed that, in a pre-cell phone era, without GPS, Google Maps et al. I know Matthew used to travel from Philly to New York a lot, at one spell for acting classes, and another time to pick up an expensive Steinway piano he bought in his heyday, but I had no faith we’d get there.

I also had no faith that Matthew in 2001 would have the necessary clout to get us in. He had been the WBC champion two decades earlier, and he’d even fought in The Garden but, alas, he couldn’t get us in and I fronted up the $75 per ticket for us to get in.

We were in the nosebleeds and scaled the zig-zagging escalators to eventually take our seats.

From there, well, on the screens above, I was able to watch the masterful Ricardo Lopez in action on the undercard, in the final fight of his career.

But what I remembered most, until the main event, was the post-9/11 sentiment and how united the audience was in affording a rapturous ovation for the first responders Don King had gifted tickets to, and when R and B singer Ginuwine sang the US national anthem. People around me in the cheap seats were crying and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Even I, a 22-year-old English kid who lived more than 3,000 miles away, was American at that moment.

***

Felix Trinidad was supposed to be the next great middleweight and King’s tournament was designed to anoint him as such.

As The Garden’s CEO, Seth Abraham, said proudly in the big-fight programme: “The winner of tonight’s World Middleweight Unification prizefight between Felix Trinidad and Bernard Hopkins will be the one and only 160-pound champion. Undisputed, unchallenged, inarguably the world’s best middleweight king.”

It had been 14 years since Marvin Hagler had managed to stitch together recognition as the indisputable leader of the division.

The prize for winning the tournament and unifying the belts was not just the titles but also the Sugar Ray Robinson Trophy. Of course, it didn’t take off. It likely sits in Hopkins’ basement, although Bert Sugar seemed convinced it was boxing’s new showpiece bauble.

“College football has its Heisman Trophy, pro football its Lombardi Trophy, college basketball its Larry O’Brien Trophy, baseball its Cy Young Award… and now boxing has its own piece of hardware, one which can rightfully take its place in sports’ trophy case alongside the others: The Sugar Ray Robinson Trophy,” he fawned.

Anyway, Hopkins was making the 14^th defence of his IBF middleweight title and the first of the WBC belt he won against Keith Holmes in the opening round of the tournament, while Trinidad was putting up the WBA belt he’d iced William Joppy for. Trinidad was a 2/1-on favourite.

The chip that would remain on Hopkins’ shoulder for his career was in evidence when he spoke to Hall of Fame writer Bernard Fernandez ahead of the bout.

Bernard talked about the five years he served in prison for robbery and about life in what is known as “The Badlands” of Philadelphia.

“I came from ‘The Badlands’ where people have problems,” he said. “They’re smoking crack, they’re drinking, they’re shooting dope, they’re prostituting, they’re stealing, they’re scheming, they’re conning. When I go back, some corners I stop at, some I don’t. Some barbershops I go into, some I don’t. But I know where the love is, and I give that love right back.”

He told Fernandez that he had no intention of thanking Trinidad for the opportunity or being grateful for having the chance to further his career against a boxing A-lister.
“He’s not giving me anything I’m not giving him,” Hopkins said stoically.

****

Aside from the Philly vs. Puerto Rico in New York angle, there’s not a whole lot of similarities, if the truth be told.

Twenty-five years ago, it was the Puerto Rican having to prove himself in a new weight class, now it is the Philadelphian’s turn.

Hopkins was methodical, economical, and utilised mind games. Ennis is fast, furious and you have to hold on to your hat when he fights.

Trinidad was vulnerable. He touched down multiple times but he had that emphatic equaliser and when he destroyed Joppy at middleweight, that only reinforced the notion that he would – at some point – catch up with Hopkins and likely stop the veteran. Zayas doesn’t have that same KO reputation. Ennis is more machine gun than Hopkins, the considered sniper, Zayas is more of a baseball bat guy than the stick of dynamite Trinidad was.

This weekend, however, Zayas will walk to the ring as the WBO and WBA 154lbs champion and he will defend an unbeaten record that now sees his stats at 23-0 (13 KOs). That is 17 wins shy of where Tito was. Zayas is only 23, and driven by a clear ambition. An impressive win over Boots, and he will be looking to join that rarefied air that hosts the likes of Trinidad and Miguel Cotto in the modern-day great stakes from his proud island. For Ennis, who unified two of the belts at 147lbs, he brings a 35-0 (31 KOs) ledger and despite several credible wins, he’s not broken through the way Hopkins did after he defeated Trinidad. This could do that.

Hopkins, by the way, was a more complicated 39-2-1 (28 KOs) while Trinidad was a sparkling 40-0.

Hopkins was the hard-luck kid. He’d lost his debut, had lost a decision to Roy Jones, was dropped twice and drew with Segundo Mercado (who he defeated in a rematch), with the first fight being for the vacant IBF 160lbs title and Hopkins claiming it in a return four months later.

And despite wins over Joe Lipsey, Antwun Echols (twice), John David Jackson, Simon Brown, and then adding Holmes’ WBC title, the respect he merited eluded him.

That was where Trinidad came into it.

*****

Everything changed after Hopkins-Trinidad. New York and America continued to heal and major events were restarted.

Trinidad’s air of menace and invincibility left for good and Hopkins galloped up the pound-for-pound lists. Finally, he was a star.

Trinidad was only 28 but he’d burned brightly. Hopkins was 36 and about to enter another act in his career that saw him box at world class for another 15 years, setting records in the sport and at light heavyweight with his phenomenal, age-defying feats.

And there was no doubt who was the world champion at 160lbs. That is different to Saturday, at 154lbs, where Josh Kelly has a belt and the likes of Vergil Ortiz and Sebastian Fundora will contest the claim of anyone who says they are No. 1 in the division.

And as for Trinidad-Hopkins, yes, there were subplots. There had been the flag throw, 9/11 and the emotion of the occasion, but nothing detracted from the amazement of watching Trinidad getting muzzled in The Garden. And you could tell from early on how the fight would trend to the point that it seemed a minor miracle that Trinidad had even made it to the opening bell of the 12^th round. It hadn’t been a shutout on the scorecards up to then, but it had been psychologically.

The lasting image I had, from the cheapest seats in the house, was Hopkins attempting an ungainly forward roll in celebration. The old man – as he was seen then – was hit with the childlike enthusiasm to stoop to the canvas and act like he was five years old. That was “The Executioner.” Well, he had at least executed Trinidad in the ring with far more aplomb than he did the gymnastics.

(Main picture at the top: Zachariah Delgado/Matchroom Boxing)

For it is there, among the Pyramids of Giza, no less, where Oleksandr Usyk, the best heavyweight boxer in the world, fights Rico Verhoeven, a kickboxer who has fought once as a professional boxer.

Now, 12 years on from his second-round stoppage of the then 0-5 Hungarian Janos Finfera, who retired 0-6, by the way, Verhoeven fights as a professional boxer again in what is quite extraordinarily a contest for the WBC’s heavyweight title.

This is not a version of the title, a gold, silver, interim or international title, but the real one.

Oh, Mauricio.

I digress.

This bout is from the same stable of events that saw Francis Ngannou line up against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua and Connor McGregor go in with Floyd Mayweather and quite why they’re still happening is just about anyone’s guess.

Oh, but it’s in front of the Pyramids, you might say. Well, I don’t really mind where it happens, the result will still be the same.

Now I would have understood these fights had they happened more in the 1980s. Back then, there was a genuine curiosity about what martial art was the most effective and who would win if fighters with differing backgrounds competed.

But we found out in the 1990s, through mixed martial arts, that when it comes down to fighters from different disciplines clashing, the house just about almost always wins. That is to say, whoever is fighting in their discipline wins.

As we learned with Ngannou against Joshua, McGregor against Mayweather, the boxers who box for a living have the deck stacked in their favour. By no means is that a criticism. It’s a fact.

Now, for Verhoeven, we’re told he is a great striker. We know he’s done his boxing training with Peter Fury for years, and he’s sparred countless rounds with both Tyson and Hughie Fury. He also has a size advantage. But simply by listing all this stuff we are scratching around trying to find a compelling case for him to win. We are also, really, enabling it.

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