Resiliency Is a Trademark of the Sport

Heavyweight champion James Jeffries was overweight and out of shape at 235 pounds.

Easy target?

Challenger Jack Finnegan might have thought so when they entered a Detroit ring to battle for the heavyweight championship.

But it took less than a minute for Finnegan, 50 pounds lighter, to realize just how wrong he had been.

It was Finnegan who turned out to be the target, and Jeffries didn’t miss, knocking down his helpless opponent four times on four punches, the last ending the fight only 55 seconds after it had begun.

The date was April 6, 1900.

It was the quickest knockout ever in a heavyweight title fight, a mark that would last 100 years.

It’s the end of the year 2000. The heavyweight division has become an embarrassment, an insult to the great heavyweights of the past. Lennox Lewis, as good as he has become, reigns over a division of stiffs that couldn’t give Finnegan a decent fight.

Yet boxing overall enjoyed another revival this year. The sport has survived despite constant cries for its banishment for everything from tragic deaths to terrible scandals over the last century. Just when boxing seems ready to go down for the count, it bounces back with performances that thrill and inspire, the cheers drowning out the critics.

So it was in 2000. There was a scandal that brought down Bob Lee, the head of the International Boxing Federation. There were the unfortunate injuries and deaths that always plague the sport. The dreary heavyweight division provided a series of mismatches.

Yet there also were spectacular highs to balance the lows.

BEST FIGHT OF THE YEAR

Winner: Felix Trinidad versus Fernando Vargas. For sheer drama, nothing could match this 154-pound title fight at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Vargas went down from a Trinidad left hand only 23 seconds into the fight. The Oxnard fighter went down again seconds later from another Trinidad left.

But Vargas is no Finnegan.

The 154-pounder got up and made a fight out of it, putting Trinidad down in the fourth round and lasting into the 12th, when the bout finally was stopped after Vargas had suffered his fifth knockdown.

It was Trinidad’s artistry against Vargas’ courage. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Runner-up: Shane Mosley versus Oscar De La Hoya. It was billed as the Battle of Los Angeles, matching Mosley of Pomona against De La Hoya of East Los Angeles in the first fight at Staples Center.

This June match lived up to the billing, a tough, well-fought bout between two welterweights at their peak.

De La Hoya led early, Mosley adjusted and came on and the two engaged in a toe-to-toe slugfest in the final round that gave Mosley a split decision and finally should settle the nickname issue.

Yes, he should be called Sugar Shane, the worthy successor to the century’s two other great Sugars (Robinson and Leonard). And no, the other is not Chicken De La Hoya.

WORST FIGHT OF THE YEAR

Winner: Mike Tyson versus Andrew Golota. It’s matches like this that make one wonder whether there still will be boxing a century from now. After two rounds of feeling the power of Tyson’s punches in their October heavyweight match at the Palace of Auburn Hills, Mich., Golota fought off his trainer, who was trying to put the fighter’s mouthpiece back in, and quit.

Apparently, nobody warned Golota that Tyson could punch.

Around the world, viewers angrily clicked off their pay-per-view telecast and swore they’d never buy another.

Hopefully for the sport, the viewers will be back.

Hopefully for the sport, Golota won’t be.

Runner-up: Lewis versus David Tua. Tua also quit in his heavyweight title match against Lewis last month at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

After two rounds against a superior fighter with a seven-inch height advantage, Tua knew he was outclassed.

The good news is, Tua at least kept his mouthpiece in and went the full 12 rounds. The bad news is, he kept his mouthpiece in and went the full 12 rounds, forcing viewers to endure a match that was about as exciting as a sparring session.

FIGHTER OF THE YEAR

Winner: Trinidad. After dominating the 147-pound division, he moved up to 154 and demolished David Reid and Vargas.

Runner-up: Mosley. The victory over De La Hoya removes any doubt that Mosley deserves a spot among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, a 147-pounder with a deadly combination of speed and power.

STIFF OF THE YEAR

Winner: Golota. Who else?

Runner-up: Derrell Coley. Knocked down by De La Hoya in their February match at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Coley admitted he could have gotten up, but said, “I thought about my family.”

He obviously didn’t think about the people who had paid him, the people who had supported him or the people who had shelled out money to watch him fight.

BEST FIGHT OUTSIDE THE RING

Winner: De La Hoya versus Bob Arum. In terms of viciousness, low blows and cheap shots, nothing can equal De La Hoya’s legal battle to sever his ties with Arum, his promoter, after eight fabulously successful years of fame and fortune for both men.

Runner-up: Tyson versus the media. This is a perennial contender in this category. Tyson had another mean-spirited, expletive-filled year in his never-ending battle to fight off those wide-eyed reporters who breathlessly chronicle his every outrage.

Perhaps the highlight this year was Tyson’s touching admission, made in a Beverly Hills news conference, that he takes an antidepressant “to keep me from killing all you white people.”

A grateful media, given new life, is expected to again contend for this award by continuing to inform a curious world about Tyson’s exploits in 2001.