World middleweight title · 2001
How Bernard Hopkins took Trinidad apart
Postponed by the attacks of 11 September, the final of boxing's middleweight tournament went ahead at Madison Square Garden 18 days later. Félix Trinidad was unbeaten. By the 12th round he was on the floor and his father was stepping into the ring.
The fight was meant to happen on 15 September 2001 at Madison Square Garden. The attacks of 11 September pushed it back two weeks. When it did go ahead, on 29 September, it was the final of a tournament Don King had built to unify the middleweight division, featuring Keith Holmes, William Joppy, Hopkins and Trinidad.
Trinidad was 28 and unbeaten in 40 fights, 33 of them won by knockout. He held the WBA title. Hopkins was 36, 39–2–1, and held the WBC and IBF belts. The man who won would be undisputed champion.
The method
Hopkins did not try to match Trinidad's power. He tried to make it irrelevant.
The first two rounds were slow, both men looking. In the third Hopkins began landing his jab consistently from the outside. Trinidad found his power in the fourth, and the pace lifted, but in the fifth Hopkins outboxed him again with his movement. Trinidad's best round was the sixth, when he backed Hopkins onto the ropes. It was the one real spell of the fight that went his way.
After that the pattern returned. Hopkins kept moving and kept his shape. By the tenth, Trinidad's flurries were no longer landing. Hopkins finished that round with big punches. Trinidad came out for the 11th on unsteady legs; Hopkins looked fresh.
The 12th
In the final round Hopkins landed a big right hand to the chin, and Trinidad went down. He got up, but his father and trainer, Félix Trinidad Sr, had seen enough. He stepped in and told the referee, Steve Smoger, to stop it.
It was not close. At the stoppage the judges had Hopkins ahead 109–100, 107–102 and 107–102. HBO's unofficial scorer, Harold Lederman, had it 108–101.
What it meant
Hopkins was named The Ring's Fighter of the Year. He went on to make 20 defences of the middleweight title in all before losing to Jermain Taylor. Trinidad announced his retirement after his next fight, came back, and later lost to Winky Wright and Roy Jones Jr.
The fight is remembered as Hopkins's masterpiece because of how he won it. He went in against the harder puncher, outboxed him for eleven rounds, and then knocked him down in the twelfth.