Bigger man vs. smaller man. Joppy is a natural 160-pounder. Trinidad was a welterweight 20 months ago and was knocked down several times fighting at 147 pounds and then at 154. Joppy has won as an underdog. When Joppy won the title for the first time in 1996 by knocking out Shinji Takehara, he did it in Japan, where the whole nation was against him.
Styles make fights.
Joppy is a boxer-puncher with good handspeed and good footspeed. Those elements give Trinidad trouble, like in the Oscar De La Hoya fight and the first half of the David Reid bout. Joppy's friend, Hasim Rahman, won the heavyweight title 3 weeks ago vs. Lennox Lewis. Joppy and Rahman have the same managers in Stan Hoffman and Steve Nelson. And after Rahman broke camp for his fight, Joppy moved in and worked in the same gym, sparred in the same ring, lived in the same house and even slept in the same bed.