Félix Trinidad
Hopkins had made 12 consecutive title defenses as a middleweight and was looking to make it 14, tying him with Carlos Monzón for record defences. At around the same time, Félix Trinidad had cleaned out the Welterweight division defeating everybody in front of him including a win over Oscar De La Hoya. Following this he made the move to Super Welterweight defeating Fernando Vargas and was by this time considered to be one of the best boxers in the world by many. He then decided to move up to middleweight, Don King had then organized a middleweight tournament featuring Keith Holmes, William Joppy, Bernard Hopkins &amp; Félix Trinidad.