Jones vs Calzaghe

Kessler

 

I see the difference in ability massively yes. Calzaghe was thrice the fighter Ricky Hatton was

 

It was one of the most one-sided world title fights of all-time, C|alzaghe could hit Jone at will, Roy looked completely lost and helpless.

 

He was.

He was a gun shy, almost 40 year old fighter, who’d already been knocked out over 4 years later. That’s why Joe fought him.

 

He knocked Calzaghe down though, had him in trouble in the opening round. It was a very competitive match until Jones sustained the cut. The cut caused Jones to be more defensive. Even then while he was outpointed still held his own and landed some good shots on Calzaghe.

You look at round 2 for example Jones was doing well and arguably did enough to win it. (the judges disagreed) But I think Jones was being a bit too much of a showman pandering the crowd at times. This kind of came back to bite him when he got the cut but Jones was looking like he had a shot to win early on.

 

Prior to Jones facing Calzaghe, he looked very impressive defeating Felix Trinidad and went on to beat Lacy and Sheika so to suggest Jones had been shot since 04' isn't true, he wasn't quite the fighter who'd dominated during the 90's but was still competitive at world level.

 

How did he look very impressive defeating Tito?

He looked awful.

Tito hadn’t fought for over 3 years, he was a peak WW/JMW, and he couldn’t even make their agreed upon catch-weight. They had a 170 pound catch-weight written into the contract, yet he could only hit 172 pounds.

What does that tell you?

Tito was as shot as what Roy was.

Lacy and Sheika were good performances, but they were levels lower.

Those guys were C class guys at that point.

Lacy was a punching bag. Completely washed up.

Roy could no longer win at the highest level.

If he couldn’t beat a guy like Glen Johnson in 2004, he had absolutely no business whatsoever fighting a guy like Joe 4 years later.

He only took the fight with Joe because he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Joe was that desperate to have Roy’s name on his resume before he retired, he gave Roy 50% of all the revenue.

After beating Sheika and Lacy, Roy went on to lose to Danny Green, Bernard Hopkins and Denis Lebedev.

He was no longer a top level fighter at that point. Which is why Joe wrote the following in his 2007 autobiography:

“I have no interest in fighting Roy Jones. A fight would be pointless”

“I have no interest in facing Tarver either. He’s done nothing apart from beat a shot version of Jones, and Johnson did the same”

 

Not much credit given how shot RJJ was.

At their peaks, RJJ makes Calzaghe look like a nobody. Calzaghe had great hand and foot speed for a SMW but RJJ was on a another level. Whatever Calzaghe thinks he can do speedwise, RJJ would just beat him to the spot. Speed kills in any athletic endeavor.

 

What about RJJ's wins over Prince Badi Ajamu and Anthony Hanshaw? Those were good performances. Hanshaw was undefeated. RJJ was clearly improving fight after fight since his KO losses to Tarver and Johnson.

Trinidad was obviously retired and well past it but RJJ still performed well that night. Roy built himself back up by the time he fought Calzaghe. The Green stoppage was premature. He performed better than expected vs Hopkins, his performance vs Hopkins in the rematch is very underrated. Vs Lebedev was the first time I noticed him really starting to slow down, which had to be due to him being out of the ring for over a year and moving up in weight.

 

You can`t prove that.

 

Hopkins boxed Jones ears off in the rematch.

 

Speed doesn`t kill fundamentals, Calzaghe was more savvy than Jones and use to land more punches, often Jones would back away from inferior fighters and pot-shot.

 

They were just confidence builders against low level guys.

The Green stoppage looked premature, but he was going anyway.

It wasn’t the stoppage that bothered me. What bothered me the most, was how that telegraphed right hand landed in the first place.

He actually did very well against Lebedev. It just highlighted how great Roy was in his prime. The version of Roy who fought Ruiz, would have beaten Lebedev with absolute ease.

 

He didn’t.

He rolled around on the floor crying, trying in vain to get Roy disqualified.