31 years ago today: Roy Levesta "RJJ/Captain Hook" Jones Jr. vs. Glenn "The Promise/The Heat" Thomas

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If you were to send a hard drive on a satellite into the nether reaches of space transmitting an endless loop of boxing footage to impress aliens and flex the coolness of "Earth sports", you're going to want to have some peak & prime RJJ in the cut. This is as exemplary a type specimen of that as you'll find. This is the "Tinder profile pic" writ intergalactic, so to speak.

Of course, Thomas' name doesn't rank among the highest value targets on Roy's hitlist. In fact, he probably wouldn't make a top 15 on most people's list of his opponent's best career victories. He also undoubtedly brought in a zero that was entirely padded. That said, you can trust your eyeballs here and see that he was by no means a bad fighter. Pretty useful, actually. He just happend to have the bad luck of being thrown in with the force of nature that was a peak & prime RJJ performing in front of an already adoring home crowd in Pensacola. Poor guy thought he was in a routine battle of unbeaten prospects where he was the marginally most experienced. Expectations cannot have been anywhere near the reality that slammed into him.

It's worth mentioning that Thomas would later go the ten round distance with the likes of James Toney, Mike McCallum, and Michael Nunn. None of them so much as dropped him. He was if nothing else tough, but toughness won't protect you from that preternatural speed, agility and explosiveness.

Also...man, USA Tuesday Night Fights presented by Budweiser. Nostalgia overload. We used to get fights like this - zeroes on the line, 18-0 (17) vs. 24-0 (13) - on a regular basis, on basic cable. Crazy. Of course nobody in 1991 could have known for sure that one of these prospects would go down as an ATG. And just think - this wasn't even the headliner. Tony Tubbs vs. Lionel Butler was; while that was a fun upset blitz in hindsight it was the barest blip on the radar compared with this time capsule gem.

 

Imagine going in blind?

"I've got a ticket for Tubbs vs. Butler, heard there is this kid named Roy Jones on the undercard. Wonder if he's any good?"