Still in those days i was starved for boxing coverage and was glad to see it at a friends.couldnt afford sky in those days..
It's a fact. Ask anyone around the camp, who were at his hospital bedside in tears the night before as James lay there on dialysis.
That's nearly 60, man. He didn't even look like James Toney, his head and neck and face - was very scarey.
It was shown on Sky Sports 3 around 11pm in the 2000s. Not ITV1 (Lmao!) in the 90s. Back then ITV1 didn't even exist, there was only one ITV and that was, uhh, ITV. Benn and Sibson didn't spar because Benn didn't spar at all until he went to Miami. It's made up.
Everyone knows why; he was a tedious cherrypicking ducker. Period. It's been proven time and again. Ignore anything Loudunce posts about Roid Jones. He is LITERALLY mentally ill. I've just caught him repeatedly lying yet again on YouTube in the Gloves Are Off Super-middleweights comment section regarding Roid's duck of Collins. Mental illness 101. All he does it post endless lines of utter, utter b0llocks. Year in year out. Like a dumber version of David Icke. Imagine being such a delusional loser that you have to continuously invent new lies to back up your bs arguments - even after being proven wrong with referenced facts and reality. TRAGIC. The fat 40 year old NPD & OCD impaired autistic loser is destined to spend the rest of his sad miserable life lying about Roid Jones online. Brutal. Veteran posters all know he's beyond help. Newer or slower-witted posters waste hours before getting wise. He is nothing but a useless internet troll. Enough of that freak; This content is protected After the '90s were over, the HBO bosses had belatedly gotten wise to Roid Jones and were growing tired with the cherrypicking Jones - after deliberately pricing himself out or flatout refusing offers for real fights - now hiding firmly behind the fake mandatory defences of his meaningless paper ABC titles excuse (e.g. Frazier & Richard Hall) in order to avoid the real challenges, in particular his refusal to challenge world light-heavyweight champion Dariusz Michalczewski. This excuse was again particularly bogus considering how Roid swerved WBC #1 challenger Nunn, WBC interim champion Rochigianni, and embarrassingly wrote letters to the IBF in order to duck their #1 challenger Antonio 'Milkdud' Tarver then dropped his IBF strap altogether when Tarver returned to the #1 spot in '02; moves that would eventually come back to take his soul. LOL. HBO's senior vice-president Lou DiBella was the first to speak out ahead of quitting HBO altogether in Apr 2000 to go on his own with a few select boxers, partly due to having to deal with Roid's bs which was making a mockery of the matchmaking standards which DiBella had previously worked hard to set for the network; At HBO, DiBella tossing in towel NY Daily News 12 Apr 2000 It's no secret that the outspoken super matchmaker for HBO has grown weary of all the backbiting, backstabbing and all-around good clean fun that makes the sport the last untamed frontier in American free enterprise. At a recent legal seminar at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, DiBella took a shot at the May 13 bout between Roy Jones Jr. and Richard Hall, which will be broadcast on his own network, calling the bout a terrible mismatch and lousy television. "The May 13 fight we're putting on is garbage," DiBella said. "We're putting it on because Roy Jones wants to fight and he doesn't want to give up the belts. I have opponent approval, but I don't have the power to make him give up the belts if he turns down a mandatory." Roid himself would laughably pretend he was reluctant to defend his meaningless paper ABC straps against his mandatory bums (when in reality he was more than happy to) and even suggested he may do the right thing and give up the belts if this cr@p continues; Jones-HBO tussle steals show Dan Rafael, USA TODAY 11 May 2000 "If they keep forcing me into these kind of fights, I may give up the titles," Jones says. "I remember when you had to prove yourself to be No. 1. Now guys show up No. 1 because of a promoter." "I want to have one or two more defenses of the undisputed title, and then maybe I'll give them up. I've tried to live by the rules, but the organizations keep coming at you, making these title fights for no reason." This content is protected --- Drop his paper straps?? If he would be boxing the likes of Hall, Frazier, or Glen Kelly? No. To duck a difficult southpaw in Nunn, Rochigianni, or Tarver? Yes - which is exactly what he did. After Jones vs Hall (the infamous steroids fight), Seth Abraham would then admit to the farcical situation he had created with Roid hiding behind the tired "mandatory title defences" reason as his prime excuse for the ducking & cherrypicking; Jones Mauls Hall New York Times 16 May 2000 "The referee ought to be pistol-whipped for allowing that to go on." An excessive punishment, but Merchant would not have said it if Jones did not insist on fighting mandatory challengers whom talent bypassed. Last year, he dispatched an embarrassing mandatory, Richard Frazier, the World Boxing Council's No. 1 contender, in the second round. Hall was the World Boxing Association's top contender. And Jones is looking to face the International Boxing Federation's highest-ranked challenger, to be chosen from the winner of the little-anticipated Antonio Tarver-Eric Harding bout. But Jones does not want to lose any of his belts and HBO cannot force him to surrender a belt. ''It's maddening,'' said Seth Abraham, the president of Time Warner Sports. ''For Roy, the belts represent a level of status that we don't hear from Lennox Lewis, Oscar De La Hoya and Naseem Hamed.'' Technically, HBO could pay Jones his millions and not televise a gross mismatch, Abraham said, ''but if we didn't, we'd open ourselves up to a breach of contract lawsuit.'' Only one fight remains on Jones's HBO contract. The fight must be on TVKO pay-per-view, for which Jones is guaranteed no money. And he will face Tarver or Harding, unless he wants to lose his I.B.F. belt. ''Roy will earn whatever the public thinks that fight is worth,'' Abraham said. Which won't be much. Jones's pay-per-view appeal has been compromised by the weak light-heavyweight division. Even Jones's talent can't make up for a mismatch when fans are asked to pay $40 or $50. It doesn't get any clearer than that. And if you're wondering why the f*ck Michalczewski was rarely heard of on HBO, after the Hall fight in May '00 Larry Merchant would admit on Pedro Fernandez's Ringtalk online radio show that Roid went as far as to specifically ask the HBO commentary not to even mention Michalczewski's name during their broadcasts. Pathetic. ...Jones-Harding would predictably sell poorly on ppv, with the deluded greedy Jones reportedly losing millions after taking Murad Muhammad's unbelievably dumb advice to decline HBO's massive $4.2m flat fee offer for the garbage Harding ppv to gamble on the buy rate instead, resulting in Roid getting mad and giving him the boot; Roy Jones, Jr. Break With Murad Muhammad Near By Thomas Hauser 12 Sep 2000 Roy Jones, Jr. hasn't suffered many beatings in the ring during his boxing career, but he took a bad one last Saturday night. Preliminary figures confirm that, as expected, the world's best fighter will be out-of-pocket between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 in conjunction with the New Orleans fight card promoted by Murad Muhammad. At Muhammad's urging, Jones was the card's primary financial backer. Add to that the $4,200,000 that Jones would have received had he ignored Muhammad's advice and accepted a flat rights fee from HBO, and there's a swing well in excess of $5,000,000. Jones is also reportedly angered by what he considers poor treatment of his family at the fight site. And he is starting to focus on allegations that Muhammad has improperly taken $1,000,000 in revenue from previous Roy Jones fights. "It should unravel quickly for Murad," a source close to the champion said on Monday night. "In all likelihood, he'll be out within a week." ...With DiBella gone after HBO's contract with Roid expired, Abraham - knowing full well HBO could end up locked into the same situation given Roid's well-documented reluctance - incredibly managed to f*ck up on an epic scale when he somehow deluded himself into re-signing Roid to another soft, even more ridiculous contract which was wide open to abuse in late 2000 just before Abraham left the company, allowing the already-overpaid Roid to blackmail HBO late in the negotiations into increasing his guaranteed license fees to box cherrypicked opposition despite Roid still not being able to draw flies and HBO bidding against nobody but themselves. Mind boggling. (Practically all web links which covered the negotiations seem to be dead.) Note: Lying spastic Loudunce's invented fantasy version of reality; Totally clueless.
...continued; Obviously Roid was more than happy to abuse such a contract, and - after incredibly bypassing opportunities to box the best fighters at 175lbs, 168lbs, and 160lbs in Michalczewski, Calzaghe, and Hopkins by finding a way out of each fight (i.e. blatantly ducking) - would predictably settle straight back into his usual routine by defending his paper ABC straps against second rater Derrick Harmon in Feb '01. And so it continued. All three were potential career-best wins. An infuriated Hopkins, now represented by DiBella who stated "Our attitude is Roy Jones doesn't want the fight", would resort to posting an open letter to Roid online after Roid deliberately killed their rematch (with laughable rubbermatch stipulations) as soon as he'd secured the HBO deal. Abraham wouldn't explain his ludicrous decisions until after HBO had finally gotten rid of Jones in 2005. The farce only got worse; before Roid's bout with another full-time public servant mandatory bum in Glen 'The Garbage Man' Kelly (yes, really) in Feb '02, The Ring magazine would instantly destroy the credibility of their championship belt upon its re-introduction when they embarrassingly awarded Jones their light-heavyweight strap despite Michalczewski still being the world champion in the same f*cking division. "Absolutely laughable." Then after belatedly creating a new "championship policy" for their belt, The Ring editor and current chairman of the Roid Jones Fan Club, the useless Nigel Collins, actually acknowledged in Sep '02 that if their championship policy was in place in 1997, Michalczewski "probably would have been The Ring Champion." What a f*ck up. ...When Roid chose to box Clinton Woods in Jun 2002 in yet another mis-mandatory rather than challenge IBF cruiserweight titlist Vassiliy Jirov (whom HBO wanted Roid to box), HBO would give up on Roid altogether. Even HBO's Mark Taffet and clown company man Kerry Davis - Roid's biggest cheerleader f@g who'd lied for him in the past - would reluctantly start to admit the truth and talk sense; HBO Holding Off on July 13 Date for Jones-Woods m*xboxing.com 03 May 2002 With the announcement yesterday that Roy Jones had decided to take on his WBC mandatory Clinton Woods as his next opponent, bypassing IBF cruiserweight titlist Vassiliy Jirov, the online petitions had begun to circulate, message boards were buzzing all across boxing forums and a web picket line was already developing for July 13th. The 'Roy-cott' was in full force, as boxing fans vowed not to shell out their hard earned bucks for Jones' latest mis-mandatory. "Roy Jones versus Clinton Woods on July 13th on pay-per-view is not a viable alternative," Mark Taffet, of HBO Sports and HBO Pay-Per-View, told MaxBoxing.com The HBO brass, once the undisputed light heavyweight champion's staunchest defenders, are now not so willing to defend Jones, with whom they have an exclusive multi-bout contract. Taffet wasn't completely shocked by the turn of events. "We're more disappointed than we are surprised," said Taffet. "We're very disappointed because we've been working very hard to try and present Roy with a number of alternatives and to work with him constructively on alternatives which we think support and enhance his legacy in the sport. And we're disappointed in the choice of Clinton Woods." Woods is another in a long list of lightly regarded mandatory defenses that Jones has faced since unifying the light heavyweight division in 1999. HBO simply has no choice but to accept Woods (who's biggest win to date is a win over Yawe Davis) because he fit the criteria set in Jones' contract, which states that any opponent he chooses must be rated in the top 10 by 'The Ring' or 'the Boxing Digest' magazine rankings. So is there any hope that Jones will step up to the plate and face a Bernard Hopkins, Dariusz Michalczewski or Jirov before he rides off into the Pensacola sunset? Who knows? This content is protected , and Kery Davis of HBO feels that the time is now and that Jones owes it to the paying public. "The one thing I wish Roy would consider more is what the fans want to see," said Davis, one of Jones' biggest advocates. "And I know he's in a situation with Woods where he wants to protect his belt but it's still the fans who pay the bills and help him make the money he makes. "Certainly, there's a time for particular fights, he's coming off fights against Derrick Harmon, Julio Gonzalez and Glen Kelly. There's a time for a big fight for a fighter like Roy and the fans desperately want to see that. We desperately want to give the fans what they want and it's unfortunate that he's not considering that more." --- "Roy Jones plays the mandatory game to perfection, the latest being his title defense against the WBC’s number one light-heavyweight contender Clinton Woods. These type of mandatory fights have enabled Jones to avoid the more serious ones, the matches the public really wants to see. When Jones starts to get criticized for not taking on sterner opposition, he deflects it by saying that if he did not box his mandatory challengers he would then be stripped of his titles." - Jack Hirsch, S*condsO*t.com, 2002 It gets better; before the Woods fight, HBO Sports' Xavier James would then further publicly expose Roid's ducking & cherrypicking scam for what it was, and state - with the deluded Senile Seth gone - that HBO would now go as far as restructuring their whole contracts to protect themselves from ending up trapped in a contract with a cherrypicking ducker like Jones again; Clinton Woods? Jones should breeze yet again espn via MaxBoxing 03 Jun 2002 ...the tool of a fighter (Roy Jones) who continues to take advantage of a contract that allows him to maximize his earning potential while eliminating his risk. Hey, it's a great gig for Jones, keep collecting these $4 to $5 million licensing fees while taking on the likes of Woods. This content is protected They are making no bones about it, Jones-Woods is being aired on their network -- not because they want to, but because they have to. "Our attitude is we're reluctantly airing it," admits Xavier James of HBO Sports. "The bottom line here is I don't know how Clinton Woods became a top 10 light heavyweight and I prefer not to telecast it. But, contractually, we have very little latitude in that regard. As far as I'm concerned, I'd prefer Roy to fight a more competitive fight." So how many more Glen Kelly and Woods fights can we expect in the future? "It depends on how long Roy wants to fight and it depends on his perspective during the remainder of his career," James said. This content is protected I want to get to a point where titles are completely irrelevant." Barrera, in the last year or so, has taken on the likes of Naseem Hamed, Erik Morales and is scheduled to take on Johnny Tapia in November 2nd. This content is protected However, it has fattened Jones' pocketbook at Time Warner's expense, but James says that his company is changing it's philosophy in that regard to make sure fighters they sign to multi-fight agreements don't take advantage of them. "We've already changed that contractual philosophy and going forward we will have much more contractual latitude to not accept a non-competitive fight," James said. "In our last two multi-fight negotiations, Barrera, and currently with Vernon Forrest, we make it clear to the other side that at the end of the day, we want the best match-ups in the world. We pay a premium for it, we don't pay a premium to maintain his belt by fighting some guy we never heard off. That's not good programming and that's not getting our money's worth. This content is protected Call it 'the Roid Jones Rule'. This content is protected
...continued; "Perhaps HBO's biggest mistake is in believing anything that comes out of Jones' mouth. Jones, if anything, has proven to be as big a double-talker and hypocrite as there is in boxing." - Steve Kim, M*xboxing, Jun 2002 With HBO's unconditional backing, Roid was the one boxer who could afford to dump all his meaningless paper ABC straps to pursue the biggest fights against the best opposition back then - if he wanted to. HBO clearly wanted him to. And he would've been lauded for it, as were Roid's Glass Jaw Breakers Antonio Tarver & Glen Johnson when they both dumped their ABC straps ahead of their bout in Dec '04. But Roid wouldn't; because those ABC straps and "mandatory" defences were the exact excuses he hid behind to avoid the toughest fights. DiBella, Abraham, & James f*cking spelled it out. Note: Again, Fat Robert aka Loudunce is simply too dumb & deluded to even comprehend this obvious scenario as it doesn't fit into his fantasy world and kills his fake fanboy denials. So he just denies it; LMFAO. Rationalizing delusions and lies...with delusions and lies. The charade was made only more farcical by the fact that no one knowledgeable ever respected Roid's bogus light-heavyweight straps given Michalczewski was the true Lineal/WBA/WBO/IBF and ultimately the 'world' light-heavyweight champion (he would also defeat the rightful WBC title holder in Apr 2000). Roid was the epitome of a paper champion. Note: Delusional fanboy Loudunce view; Clueless. Of course, there was one catch in Roid's contract; if he lost, HBO could legally tear up his contract if they wanted to, which further explains Roid's overly cautious cherrypicking. This content is protected As stated, it wasn't until after HBO got rid of Roid altogether after his commentator contract ended in 2005 that Seth Abraham would completely expose Roid, finally admitting Roid was a cherrypicking ducker, admit Roid received special treatment, and confess that the ludicrous contracts were a huge mistake. Straight from the horses mouth; What is Roy Jones' Legacy? Bernard Fernandez 05 Nov 2008 In April 2006, when Jones was mulling whether he would fight again, I asked former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham for his thoughts on this enigma wrapped in a riddle. “His drive was to do things that were of interest to him, but not necessarily to fight the very best middleweights, super middleweights and light heavyweights who were out there,” Abraham responded. “I think Roy’s legacy in the sport absolutely will suffer because he chose not to do everything he could to make himself as great as he might have been.” Stubborn Jones still believes (dead link) "One of my self-appointed assignments before I left HBO was to re-sign Roy to a new, multifight deal," Abraham remembers. "I had started passing everything over to Ross Greenburg (who would succeed Abraham), but I wanted to go out with trumpets and flourishes. I made it a personal priority to lock up Roy. All the other fighters HBO wanted, except Roy, were signed to long-term contracts. I went down to Pensacola and spent the day with Roy. We talked about boxing, we talked about his three sons, we talked about pretty much everything. One of the things I took away from that day with Roy - the Levins (Jones advisers Fred and Stanley Levin) were not there - was that nothing was going to change. But I still felt that, even if he was not our No. 1 draw (Oscar De La Hoya was and is HBO's premier profit magnet), he was the very best fighter in the world. I was probably a little too lenient in giving him the contract that I did. In retrospect, I wish I had taken a harder line with him. But he was such a special talent, I made an exception. We didn't apply the same standards for him that we did for other fighters. I thought once Roy had the financial security he wanted, somewhere in him would be this desire to prove that he was up there with Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali and Ray Robinson as one of the all-time greats." Abraham sighs, the regret in his voice evident. He bagged his quarry, but he couldn't ignite the spark in Jones he had hoped for. Some blame Jones' fear of ending up like his friend, former WBC middleweight champion Gerald McClellan, who will spend the rest of his life in darkness after a Feb. 25, 1995, fight with Nigel Benn in London left him blind and brain-damaged. Some believe it's the lucrative contract he signed with HBO in the closing months of Abraham's watch that allowed him to fight who he wanted, not the higher-caliber opponents the pay-cable giant would have preferred. Abraham believes both theories are valid, and he admits to some degree of culpability by serving as Jones' enabler. "He's very direct about that," Abraham says of Jones' nightmares of ending up in a wheelchair, like McClellan. "I've heard him say, 'No Nigel Benn is going to do that to me.' This content is protected "But you know what? No one (in the HBO hierarchy) objected to the contract. It's not like I overruled people. I think we all agreed that we did not want the best fighter in the world on another network, or freelancing. Maybe I should have let Ross make the decision. Maybe I should have said to him, "You're going to have to live with this, you make the call. What do you want to do?? But I didn't do that." This content is protected HBO Boxing: The Challenge By Thomas Hauser ?? ??? 2007 Things didn't always go smoothly. This content is protected Lou DiBella was a senior vice president under Abraham. "There was sometimes tension between Lou and me," Seth recalls. "But Lou also had more influence with me than the other members of the team. Lou's philosophy was that HBO should make the best fights possible and that all the rest was nonsense. He and I disagreed on many things. But one of the good things that Lou did was that he was always pushing me, aggressively pushing me, to make HBO Boxing better. This content is protected
