NEW YORK – On the eve of what each man is all too aware could be his last big payday, you knew Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad, business partners as much as adversaries, weren’t going to start smacking each other around on the scale, but Jones did manage to inject a whiff of controversy into the proceedings at Friday’s official weigh-in by offering the pugilistic equivalent of Land for Peace – Weight for Gloves – but Tito was having none of it.

When the contracts for Saturday night’s Madison Square Garden fight were initially brokered, Jones, who did his own negotiating, ceded to Trinidad the choice of weapons. (Either Roy didn’t care at the time, or he figured there was at leat an even-money chance Tito would come up with the same mitts he’d have picked anyway.)

A day before the fight RJ found himself mildly agitated that Trinidad had opted for Everlast gloves. (Roy had hoped to use Grants, and probably could have lived with Reyes.)

When the combatants weighed in at the Wa-Mu Theatre around 2:45 Friday, Jones was first to the scale, and registered 169 ½.
With a substantial army of supporters who had eluded security to pack the room cheering on, Tito went next, but as he stood on the scale for what seemed an interminable length of time, they eventually fell silent.

On his initial attempt, Trinidad was .2 of a pound – an ounce and a half – over the contractual 170-pound limit. Since no title is at stake in Don King’s “Bring On the Titans” main event, this would normally have been a matter of small consequence, but the Trinidad side, anticipating that Jones (who hadn’t fought at less than 173 since he knocked out Bryant Brannon here a dozen years ago) would struggle with the weight, had insisted on an iron-clad limit.

As Trinidad, who had removed only his sweats in his initial trip to the scale, began to further disrobe, Jones hastily seized the microphone in an attempt to play Let’s Make a Deal.

“I have a gloves issue I want to discuss,” said Jones. “He can keep the two-tenths of a pound that’s over. I just want my gloves, and let’s go!”

Trinidad, pointedly ignoring his opponent, kept right on disrobing until he was down to his birthday suit, and then re-mounted the scale. This time he weighed -- or was announced to have weighed, anyway -- 170 on the button. 

Although both former champions are regarded as having seen better days, Trinidad commanded a whopping $15 million guarantee worthy of a superstar for Saturday night’s work. (Having agreed to that sum, King got himself out of the line of fire by peddling the live gate to the Garden for $8.5 million. Between that and his advance from HBO PPV, the promoter’s backside is well protected. If only the Garden could say as much.)

The deal Jones negotiated on his own behalf doesn’t guarantee him a penny. Rather, the former light-heavyweight champion is working off an upside of the pay-per-view sale. If that turns out to be in the neighborhood of the 275,000 who watched him against Antonio Tarver in their PPV fight, RJ could wind up with what looks by comparison like an opponent’s purse, but if it gets close to the 525,000 who paid to watch his heavyweight title fight against John Ruiz six years ago, he is going to look like a shrewd negotiator indeed. And if ‘Bring on the Titans’ somehow crept into Mayweather-De La Hoya territory (which it won’t) Roy Jones would wind up with the single biggest payday in boxing history.

M

Send questions and comments to: gkimball@boxingtalk.com