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

Rocchigiani: Would you like to see the link again where he pulled out of a scheduled fight because Rocchigiani did not interrupt his training camp to come overseas for a press conference?

Benn: They didn't fight between the time Benn beat McClellan and the time Malinga beat Benn....what source do you need for that?

Collins: They didn't fight between the time Collins beat Benn and the time Collins retired OR the time they were both champs at middleweight.

Nunn: Well he did get stripped of a title for not fighting Nunn, so there's that...Zod posted the whole story discrediting the claims that Roy made more against Hill than he would against Nunn if you want to look for it.

Michalczewski: They didn't fight. Roy refused to go to Germany, DM was willing to fight in the US OR Germany as long as he made the same money. Link can be provided.

Eubank: Didn't duck.

 

Remember when Calzaghe insisted that Ottke, Lucas, and Beyer make their name in the UK before he'd fight them?

Yeah, me neither.

 

Would Michalczewski have made any money at all coming to the US to fight Del Valle, Grant, Frazier, Telseco, Hall, Harding, Byrd, or Kelly? And would those fights have moved him closer to fight Jones? I think people would say the same thing they were saying about Jones: Why is this guy fighting these bums?

Beating Virgil Hill (American lineal unified champ) was probably good enough...

Fact is the "travel to build your name" thing is a relic of the non-TV days. There was only one fight that mattered at LHW and it was Jones-Michalczewski. Instead they both fought a bunch of bums. I think it was because Jones wasn't interested in fighting a real, powerful LHW pressure fighter on a 14-fight KO streak. Loudon thinks it was because Michalczewski's people didn't want to fght Jones.

 

Remind us all who the American champs at SMW were during Calzaghe's reign?

It was essentially a European division. There were hardly any viable American fighters in the division, and Calzaghe fought them (Brewer, Mitchell, Sheika.

Why does it matter where a fight takes place? Nobody ever refused to fight Calzaghe on the grounds that he was unknown in America. All the guys that were ducking him were European, not American.

I fail to see how this applies to Jones ducking DM.

 

The absolute LAST reason Jones didn't fight DM was that he was unknown in America. HBO talked about that fight ALL the time.

 

Calzaghe and Hopkins had an agreement in place in 200 or 2002 until Hopkins pulled out demanding like twice the money (and then fought a guy for less than half that much).

Khan has had like 10 fights in the US and what big name fights does he have to show for it? (Not that he deserves them, but still...fighting in the US doesn't guarantee you're getting the fights you want)