By Ted Sares: Times marches on—sometimes for the better but that’ usually not the case when it comes to boxing except if your name is Bernard Hopkins.
Roy Jones Jr., 42, is currently at 54-8 with 40 KOs. He is a former middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight boxing champion. In his prime, he could punch from unorthodox angles that would shock and awe his opponents. He was Ring magazine’s Fighter of the Year in 1994 and was voted the Fighter of the Decade in 1999 by the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Between 1999 and 2003, he was considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. An amazing and seldom-mentioned fact is that Jones has faced over 20 fighters who have been a world champion at one time or another, including Antonio Tarver, Danny Green, John Ruiz, Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, Mike McCollum, Vinny Pazienza, Virgil Hill, and Jorge Castro. He also beat 9 fighters who came in with impressive undefeated records including Eric Harding, Glen Thomas, Julio Cesar Gonzalez, Glen Kelly and Anthony Hanshaw.
But after gaining and then losing perhaps too much muscle mass so that he could move up and fight John Ruiz and then move down and fight Antonio Tarver, respectively, something seemed to happen. After being waxed by Tarver and then being rendered unconscious by Glen Johnson, that something became obvious—Roy’s reflexes were gone and his chin was now concussive. Right there and then, if he had retired, his legacy would be intact, but he didn’t.
The Comeback
The champ is on the way back, baby. Don’t pay attention to what people say.
—Jones, after the Prince Badi Ajamu fight.
He then launched a comeback with wins over Prince Badi Ajamu, Anthony Hanshaw, and Tito Trinidad and showed occasional flashes of his past skills, but his best days clearly were behind him and these wins may well have lulled him into a false sense of viability. After three more bouts, he lost to Hopkins in a dreadful match, was mugged and humiliated by Danny Green in one round in Australia, and suffered a horrific knockout at the hands of Russian contender Denis Lebedev. The loss to Lebedev was particularly devastating as it occurred on the same day Bernard Hopkins became the oldest Champion in boxing.
The losses to Tarver (number one), Johnson, and Lebedev were concussive and shocking, and to see doctors and officials working furiously on Jones at the Sport Complex in Moscow was downright scary.
For those of us who marveled at Roy in his prime, his deterioration as reflected by his 5-7 record in his last 12 outings has been painful. For those who use to follow his every move, his steep decline now cuts to the bone; it bites deeply. Heck, I can even recall Roy vowing that he would never hang around too long and risk getting hurt.
Maybe he just loves to fight, maybe he needs the money based on his reported issues with the IRS, perhaps it’s his perceived adulation of the fans, or maybe he is trying to recapture the impossible. But whatever it is, if he continues fighting, it will not end well. These kinds of stories seldom do.
Roy seems oblivious to the pleas from his fans to retire and no one can force him to do that (or for that matter can they force Evander Holyfield, Antwun Echols, or Rubin Williams the latter of whom has gone winless in his last 14). Certainly a commission can’t stop him given that he was able to go almost ten competitive rounds with the Russian. No one was able to force Matthew Saad Muhammad from fighting after being stopped by limited Eric Winbush and savaged by Frankie Swindell in one round. The examples of such self-destructive behavior in plain sight are too numerous to cite.
In Roy’s case (as in many others), he is self-employed and as such, he can make his own deals and create his own opportunities for profit or loss depending on his skills. If enough people pay to watch him display those skills no matter how much they have declined, he can continue to earn a profit. It’s the nature of boxing. Indeed, it’s the nature of business.
And make no mistake; boxing is for the most part a business—a very dangerous business that can have terrible consequences.