Explain the Ducking History of Great Fighters Part I: Roy Jones

Lamar Parks was a better fighter than Nigel Benn in terms of skill, technique, heavy-handedness, consistency, body shot counters, blocking, parrying, textbook combos etc. He arguably punched even harder than Benn, such was his heavy hands. DeJesus took Matt Hilton's best left hooks and most of Julian Jackson's best shots, Parks put him to sleep. He lands a blow on Roy, with those heavy hands (and fast technical delivery), and I dread to think of the outcome.

 

Jones missed the boat. When Toney, McCallum, McClellan, Benn, Watson, Eubank and Reggie Johnson were setting rings alight against eachother in sensational wars, Roy Jones was fighting in front of 200 people in Pensacola protected by his father. When he came through in late '94, all the guys were done and dusted or very nearly done and dusted. Jones would've had a much shorter career if he signed professional forms in the summer of '88 with a big-name promoter, believe that.

 

Virgil's and Reggie's speed and movement had decreased tenfold by the time they fought Jones. They were physically peaking in the 80s, and Jones was still as fast as ever in the late 90s - and chin never really touched yet due to poor comp, so fresh as a daisy.

 

Michaelzewski ducked Tarver. Tarver was his # 1 Contender for a while, and Michaelzewski refused to fight him.

 

Stop it Johnson was defending his IBF belt for the 2nd and had just recently come off the distrion of Guthrie .

 

Go to the the WBO mandatories thread the link ws provided there !

Here you go

The question I have is - since when did the WBO become such a believer in its own rules? As I look at the super middleweight ratings, I see Freeman Barr as the #1 contender - the mandatory challenger for champion Joe Calzaghe. Barr has been sitting in the #1 position since May 1, 2001. That's almost two years. He has done everything the WBO has asked of him, including fighting for, winning, and defending his NABO belt. He has brought up the issue of this mandatory defense for quite some time, and has made repeated requests for purse bids; something I know because Barr's manager, Steve Canton, is a friend of mine and we have been discussing this for about as far back as I can recall. Yet Barr has never received his opportunity to fight Calzaghe.



Why?

Well, in this case, it's very simple. Because Frank ******, one of the promoters who has his hands clutched very firmly around the WBO's collective neck, doesn't want to put the fight on. He claims he can't make any money with it. He says he can't sell it to television, etc.

That could all be correct. But you want to know something? That's Frank ******'s problem, if he wants to handle the super middleweight champion, that is. The WBO should not be making it Freeman Barr's problem. Whether Barr is a worthy #1 contender doesn't matter. The fact is - rules are rules - at least that's what the WBO would have you believe - and if Barr is the top contender, he deserves his title shot as per the WBO rules, every but as much as the WBO contends Brewster does. In fact, even more so, because Barr is #1, and has been waiting for so long.



I fully understand the economics of boxing. But TV networks shouldn't be running sanctioning bodies. And neither should promoters.

And if Frank ****** doesn't want to put his fighter into the ring with Freeman Barr, then Joe Calzaghe SHOULD BE STRIPPED OF HIS TITLE.

Under the circumstances, I hardly think the WBO has a case for hiding behind its own rules, and creating what amounts to a bogus purse bid situation, when it appears to be selectively playing to the advantage of one promoter in particular. And it probably shouldn't be allowed to do business in the United States until such time as it is ready to enforce its rules equally.

And gee, while we're at it, can someone tell me the last time Dariusz Michalczewski faced a mandatory challenger, in accordance with WBO "rules"? I must admit - I haven't done a ton of research here, but it certainly hasn't been any time in the last few years. And to my recollection, he NEVER has. Michalczewski has been permitted to fight a roster of stiffs and has-beens while leaving #1 contenders, most recently Antonio Tarver, waiting and waiting and waiting for him to come to the table.

Please understand that none of this is particularly hard to pull off when your promoter/manager (the Boxing Writers Association remembers him as their "Co-Manager of the Year") is Klaus-Peter Kohl (rhymes with "control"), who is one of the guys in charge at the WBO. That's okay - his head is big enough to wear many hats.

While you're whining about such misbehavior, though, please make note of Rule #20 in the WBO's "Regulations"

"20) EXCEPTION TO THE REGULATIONS

The World Championships Regulations shall be amended at any time, with respect to any aspect, through an exception or special case, provided the amendment is approved by the majority vote of the World Championships Committee and the Executive Committee."

That's the rule that applies here - get it?

See, I knew there was an explanation somewhere (for the uninitiated, that's called a "tongue-in-cheek" remark).

Naturally, I'm predisposed to feel a certain way about the WBO, since, after all, one of its officials once made the offer to steer one of my fighters straight into a mandatory challenger's position - in exchange for a layoff of ten grand, of course (something that was detailed in our first "Operation Cleanup" book).

So David, you've got someone potentially even better than Senator McCain on your side.

You've got Mr. Jay.

This content is protected

Copyright 2003 Total Action Inc.

 

So he was shot now

Wow starting to see a pattern with you Roy haters you guys are by far the most clueless bunch

no version of Johnson beats Jones oh wait he beat him in sparring go kick rocks with your Busch league argument !

 

From Chris Eubanks himself










"Dodging a fighter is a cardinal sin in boxing and is something i can never be accused of, unlike one such character who came onto the scene during my era. Roy Jones, James Toney and Michael Nunn for example, i did not dodge.
Lets use Roy Jones as an example. When people asked me why i wouldn't fight him, I would say to them, 'Never mind the title or my job, a fight like that could take 5 or 6 years off my life.' I was well aware of that. He was Pound for Pound, arguably the best foghter on the planet; in regards to his style, his devastating punching ability, the whole repitoire, he had it.
The rule is that if you are champiuon of the world for one body, you cannot be the No.1 contender for another belt. Unless someone was officially the recognised No.1 contender, I had no preofessional obligation to face them. With Roy Jones, he was fortunetly (and i use that word with the utmost respect) never the number 1 contender. Had he been. I would not have dodged. I would have taken the fight. Would have i won the fight. Highly unlikely. What would of been for sure was that he would have come away from the fight and got hurt, and i would have been hurt probably far more than he was. It would of been a war. Techincally we would of been well-matched, so our pure grit would of started to come into play. I believe we both had powerful wills, so the fight would up running on pure instinct. That can be a exceptional violent occurence. Interestingly i was told that Roy Jones was rumoured to have said that the only fighter he had reservations about facing was me. I don't remember any of my critics saying much about that.
So, the ultimate measure of a fighter is not dodging. If you do, you lose your standing, your respect, your honour. Don't dodge the No.1 contender.



"

 

Loudon, I havent bothered reading all of that long winded rubbish, but thought I would ask a question about part of what I did read.
You wrote something like when Jones couldnt get the fights at SMW he went up to a stronger division in LHW.
Explain how LHW was a stronger division than SMW in 96 with Collins, Benn, Eubank, Liles, Calzaghe, Reid, Liles, Nunn, Graham?

LHW in 96 had in its top 5 (including Jones)
DM who Roy didnt fight
Hill who DM beat
Griffin and Toney

Other notable top 10 names were Rocchigiani who Jones didnt fight and McCallum who Jones did fight, but who had just been clearly beaten by Tiozzo

I dont think you are correct
In over 2 years when Roy first went to LHW, his opponents were
McCallum recently beaten clearly by Tiozzo
Griffin who had not done much of note at LHW
Hill recently beaten clearly by DM
Del Valle
MW, O Grant

You are tying yourself, Imperial and Herol in knots.
Imperial will probably attempt a ducking argument to get out of answering
Herol wont even realise he has been made to look foolish and will just come out with an irrelevant pointless post.
You will probably try and argue for the sake of it, but I dont think you can argue with that point much

 

I just wanted to see someone actually take the points he asked for and answer each like he asked.
Im sure you may well have answered some, but it would have been nice to have seen a straight answer with each question asked and answered.

 

i'd like to argue the point that, as I've mentioned to you before, a host of European fighters failed to make their name in the US during roy's prime - which is why we've debated in the past that these fighters never made much (if any) imprint outside of Europe
calzaghe, a very patient man, waited a decade for Hopkins and jones to be beaten in their respective weight divisions, before trying to claim wins over both fighters and declare himself 'great'

 

Oh stfu already you support a guy didn't do **** for nearly a decade I don't know of any other champ that took 10 yrs to unify or fight a notable name worth mentioning!

Why didn't Joe move up when there was no one for him to fight ?

Your such a hypocrite it's hilarious !

How many times are you gonna repeat the same nonsense you been taken to school and even left back a grade on this topic over and over again!

 

This is correct. Big Roy stifled his career.

According to Fred Levin, he hid title shot opportunities from him. Which to me sounds bizarre. I won't ever understand Big Roy's brutal regime of turning him into a fighting machine, to then not let him loose afterwards.

 

Great post!

I've seen this before, but not for a while.

I really appreciate his honesty.

He was the guy I loved to hate as a kid.


:good