Columnist Dean Juipe: Trinidad planning to beat Reid, stay at 154

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2000 | 9:33 a.m.

Dean Juipe's boxing notebook appears Thursday. His sports column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at juipe@vegas.com or 259-4084.

If Felix Trinidad defeats David Reid March 3 at Caesars Palace, he will leave the ring with three championships in two weight divisions.

Trinidad, the WBC and IBF ruler at 147 pounds, is looking to add Reid's WBA 154-pound title to his collection. But here's the catch: Trinidad almost certainly will not fight at 147 again and, should he defeat Reid, he will be under pressure to relinquish his championships at the lesser weight.

The WBC has already mandated that Trinidad will have 15 days following the Reid fight to either announce plans to defend his 147-pound title or give it up. The beleaguered IBF will likely do the same.

"That will be determined after the fight," Trinidad said Wednesday during a conference call from his home in Puerto Rico, referring to his options. "But we have determined that it probably would be best to stay at 154."

The "we" in Trinidad's equation includes his father, Felix Trinidad Sr., a k a Don Felix.

"There has never been a question that (Felix) can handle a higher weight class," his father said. "But we'll wait until after the (Reid) fight to decide what to do."

In the event Trinidad abdicates his WBC championship, that title will be transferred to the winner of the Feb. 26 fight in New York between Oscar De La Hoya and Derrell Coley.

As for Trinidad's fight with Reid, he said not to worry.

"He doesn't have the same experience as I do," Trinidad said. "He's a very good fighter ... but I expect he'll have a problem (with his droopy left eyelid) during the fight and I'll take advantage."

Trinidad, 36-0 with 30 knockouts and coming off a win over De La Hoya, is predicting a fourth-round knockout. Reid, 14-0 with seven KOs, has predicted he will win in three rounds and two weeks ago in Las Vegas he told Trinidad "make sure your family comes dressed in black."

* QUICK HITS: Caesars Palace has added a Feb. 29 card that will offer fringe heavyweight contender Larry Donald in the main event against an opponent yet to be determined. ... Headliners for the first-ever card at Regent Las Vegas, formerly the Resort at Summerlin, will be in town today for a press conference to promote the April 1 show. The main event has heavyweights Chris Byrd, 30-1, and Lawrence Clay-Bey, 11-0, tangling for the NABF title that Michael Grant has relinquished in order to fight Lennox Lewis. ... Las Vegas heavyweight Charles Shufford, 13-0 with seven knockouts, might get his first serious test Feb. 18 in Atlantic City when he takes on Robert Davis, who is 19-0 with 12 KOs. ... At Wednesday's meeting of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Mitch Halpern was picked to referee the Feb. 19 main event at Mandalay Bay that pits Erik Morales vs. Marco Antonio Barrera. Carol Castellano, Duane Ford and Dalby Shirley will judge.

Local cruiserweight Arthur Williams anticipates a fairly swift recovery from the hepatitis B that forced him to withdraw from a Jan. 29 fight in Atlantic City. "It's not that bad," Williams said this week. "It's curable and I don't think I'll be out much more than a month. To tell you the truth, I was glad I found out about it when I did because there's no cure if it gets worse before you do anything about it." ... The Orleans has its lineup pencilled in for a Feb. 18 card and will offer junior lightweights Juan Arias and Julio Cesar Sanchez-Leon in the main event. Arias is 28-0 with 23 KOs, while Sanchez-Leon is 17-11 with 12 stoppages. In the semi-main event, Brazil's Antonio Mequita (16-0) will take on local junior welterweight Ivan Ledon (12-4-1).

Lennox Lewis said this week he wants to fight Mike Tyson within the year and then, perhaps, retire. First up, Lewis will take $7.5 million to fight Michael Grant April 29 in Madison Square Garden. "I'd rather get him now, before he gets any better," Lewis said of Grant, who is 31-0 and receiving $2.5 million on his end of the deal. Lewis, the undisputed heavyweight champion, is 35-1-1 and looking ahead to Tyson. "I'll definitely push for a fight with him," Lewis said. "I want to put a whipping on him." Lewis also mentioned a possible fight with former champ Riddick Bowe, who is rumored to be interested in coming out of what is already a four-year retirement.

Showtime has a pair of title fights set to be televised Saturday from an Indian reservation in Connecticut. Zab Judah, 21-0, and former Las Vegan Jan Bergman, 38-2, will square off for the IBF's 140-pound title, and Kostya Tszyu, 23-1-1, and Ahmed Santos, 25-2-4, collide with the WBC 140-pound title at stake. "I'm 30 years old and I still feel like I'm 22," Tszyu said during a conference call. "I'm very pleased with my form and conditioning. I've had great sparring against quality opposition." Look for Tszyu and Judah to prevail in their fights, with the latter already putting a mark in the win column. "I watched Tszyu's (1996) fight with Bergman and the kid is not ready," Judah said. "Bergman is a tall, rangy fighter ... (but) Tszyu went in there and finished him (in six rounds)." The belt up for grabs in the Judah-Bergman fight actually belongs to Terron Millett, but he has been injured and unable to defend. In theory, he'll face Saturday's winner later this year when he's up to the task.

With a crowd of 800 or so looking on at The Sporting House, UNLV's club boxing team took on defending national champion Air Force last Saturday and won three of eight official bouts. "I might have been too optimistic coming in," head coach Skip Kelp said, "but in retrospect, we didn't do all that bad. We hung tough against a strong and deep and well-conditioned Air Force team." UNLV has another card scheduled for Feb. 19 at the same site, with Penn State providing the opposition.