Columnist Dean Juipe: Fans will see, but will Reid?

Dean Juipe

Friday, March 3, 2000 | 10:39 a.m.

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

It's a question that comes up every time David Reid fights, although it has never really been answered.

Reid, who is defending his World Boxing Association junior middleweight championship against Felix Trinidad tonight at Caesars Palace, has a naturally droopy left eyelid. Time and again he has said it isn't a problem, yet his claims have bounced off doubters who speculate it will hinder him the first time he faces a truly gifted challenger.

Trinidad is that challenger.

Depending on how things go tonight, Reid will either erase the eyelid question once and for all, or, perhaps, be saddled with it and its ramifications for the remainder of his career.

Reid is 14-0 and has been fighting above-average and quality opponents since coming out of the 1996 Olympics as a gold-medal winner. To date the eye has taken its share of hits, virtually closed a couple of times, yet it has never completely impaired his ability to defend himself.

Nonetheless there's a Cyclopean risk here.

If Reid is reduced to fighting someone like Trinidad with one eye, the odds increase proportionately that he won't find a way to win.

In essence -- and until proven otherwise -- Reid is a man who steps into the ring with an additional area of concern, one that may very well be a burden. Not only does he have to stay on the offensive and protect the usual vital organs, he has to be keenly aware of sheltering that naturally weak eye.

What it's going to take to expose the eye's weakness is an opponent who can repeatedly drill that part of Reid's head with clean shots. Presumably, others have approached him with that very idea without achieving their goal.

But Trinidad is a step up from the likes of even Keith Mullings, who, heretofore, had been Reid's most dangerous opponent. And if Trinidad is half the craftsman many think he is, he's going to hit Reid more solid and more often in the area of that eye than Reid has ever been hit before.

If Trinidad, who is 36-0 with an intimidating 30 knockouts, has his way with Reid it may be painful to watch.

Reid says not to worry and, to his credit, he took a fight he could have avoided against a big hitter who is coming off a confidence-building victory over Oscar De La Hoya.

While Trinidad is a slight betting favorite and was able to take a decision over the Golden Boy, he isn't above a little critiquing himself. There's a legitimate line of thought that he defeated De La Hoya by decision not with a dazzling display of boxing prowess but because De La Hoya was too lazy and too tentative in their September fight.

Trinidad had his hand raised that night but it wasn't a fight that matched expectations and it won't be remembered for anything Trinidad did out of the ordinary. He won yet he didn't add a sense of invincibility to his portfolio.

Also worth factoring in here is Trinidad's increasingly blase attitude, at least in public discussions of this fight with Reid. If the stakes weren't so high, it would be easy to look at him or hear him and think he really didn't care.

Maybe he's just supremely confident, calculating that he can't lose to a man with only one good eye.

We'll see. But will Reid?