They say things happen in threes and William Joppy is confident that he will be the third underdog in a major championship fight this year to pull off the big upset when he takes on Felix Trinidad May 12th. Last month Marco Antonio Barrera, a 3-1 underdog, nearly shut out Naseem Hamed over 12 rounds to hand the featherweight champion his first loss. Joppy, the World Boxing Association middleweight champion, is managed by Stan Hoffman and Steve Nelson, the men behind the new heavyweight champion of the world. Joppy is happy for his stablemate and friend, but says the only inspiration he needs to beat Trinidad is the opportunity to become the undisputed middleweight champion of the world, and the May 12th semi-final battle in promoter Don King's World Middleweight Championship Series is the first step in realizing that dream. To me he hasn't fought anyone.
People know Trinidad.
They don't know me, so when they hear Trinidad is fighting William Joppy, they say Joppy is getting killed. They don't know if I can fight. Joppy is the stronger man, so we are going to back him up. But he'll find that a real middleweight's bones are bigger than those junior middleweights. Real middleweights walk around at 175 pounds.