Felix "Tito" Trinidad

When Felix was the IBF Welterweight kingpin, it was like deja vu to the early 1980s when Leonard and Hearns were first class welterweights. Felix was not the man to avoid his fellow great fighters, Trinidad fought Pernell Whitaker, Oscar De La Hoya, and Fernando Vargas...and won! Trinidad began his career winning nineteen consecutive bouts, only letting three go the distance. Felix got his first real chance against tough, experienced veteran, Maurice Blocker. "Tito" steamrolled his opponent in the second round to win his first title and his first fans. Felix made fourteen title defenses including a humiliation of all time great Pernell Whitaker, and defeating four other champions. There was big talk of a huge Welterweight Unification that would turn out to be one of the highest grossing non-heavyweight fights of all time against "The Golden Boy" Oscar De La Hoya. The fight was finally set for September 18th 1999 in the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas Nevada.  Unfortunately the fight didn't live up to its hype, but it did draw a lot of controversy as many thought Oscar had won. Surprisingly, Trinidad ignored another huge payday against De La Hoya and moved up to Super Welterweight to crumble Olympic Hero David Reid over the course of twelve rounds for the title. After a simple defense over Mamadou Thiam, "Tito" fought another huge superfight against Fernando Vargas. This time the fight lived up to the hype and Trinidad prevailed in a twelfth round stoppage. Felix moved up yet again to challenge tough WBA Champ William Joppy and punished Joppy for five rounds until Arthur Mercante jr. stopped the fight. Trinidad then unified the middleweight title against long time champ Bernard Hopkins and for the first time in his career was beaten. After a long layoff "Tito" was extremely impressive against Ricardo Mayorga, kayoing him in the 8th but was shutout against Ronald "Winky" Wright which prompted him to hang up the gloves for good.