By Srithar Visuasam: For journalists, Roy Jones Jr. is the perfect prototype fighter for writing headlines, on both extremes. Throughout the majority of his career, a story about him could allow you to use the most super of superlatives. In more recent times, his performances have seemed to give a writer license to throw knockout blows on the keyboard. In both cases, definite headline grabbers.
His most recent performance against Russian Denis Lebedev have certainly allowed the latter of the above mentioned headlines, with most stories largely focused on the crushing blows Lebedev landed on Jones to stop the bout in damaging fashion.
Firstly, the knockout of Jones in the final moments of the contest was a devastating stoppage to a fighter who has been one of the most untouchable in the modern era of the sport. It was also a sight that has had a feeling of familiarity since his April 2004 fight with Antonio Tarver and given Jones’ being 42 years old, focusing commentary on this makes logical sense.
What seems to have been lost in translation of the fight is that take those final moments of the bout out of the equation and what we saw was a competitive contest between two elite athletes.
On face value, the task of defeating Lebedev was monumental. Age aside, a natural light heavyweight taking on a top five Ring magazine natural Cruiserweight in his home country on the other side of the world in Russia, with 16 knockouts from 21 wins who lost a narrow split decision for a world title in his last fight, is certainly not going to be a walk in the park. Add to that, fighting at the highest weight of your career after you’ve had over 60 professional bouts and have only once fought at over 190 pounds, which was over 8 years ago, doesn’t improve the odds.
Going into the bout, Jones was considered to have next to no chance and based on the above, justifiably so. However, come fight time, Jones put up a performance for the best part of the 10 round duration, that almost any cruiserweight contender could be proud of.
He fought with his natural counter punching style, found openings in Lebedev’s defense with a fair degree of regularity and even stunned him on a couple of occasions, showing cruiserweight power. Roy Jones Jr held his own against a 31 year old prime elite cruiserweight.
Had the final 20 seconds of the fight not eventuated the way it did and Jones won the final round, which seemed a distinct possibility, he would’ve lost by narrow split points decision, with the scorecards at the end of round nine reading 87-84 Lebedev , 86-85 Jones and 90-81 Lebedev.
This would’ve generated a totally different manner of headlines, ones that would’ve made life difficult for many whose “Roy Jones is a ‘Shot’ Fighter” attention grabbing lines would’ve been harder to apply.
Sure he didn’t look like he did a decade ago throwing knockout punches from behind his back with electrifying speed, but he did put on a competitive performance and showed that as a 42 year old, he was able to mix it with one of the best in the cruiserweight division. It seems that it is easier to say Lebedev looked more hype than substance, was ‘carrying’ Roy Jones Jr. and gave him too much respect than to give credit to Jones’ in the contest.
Despite the final outcome of the bout, Roy Jones Jr. gave Denis Lebedev a tough fight and put on a solid performance.