Interesting that Jones had knocked out a debuting Michael Bennt in one round at the Trump Castle in Atlantic City earlier in the year. A nice montage of a in-shape, "young" Mercer doing his thing before the fight, as well as highlights of the Bennt match. Enjoy, and check out my channel for more obscure boxing. There's a playlist at the end of this video. This content is protected
Have you ever seen the Marion Wilson fight? Mercer came in at a bloated 246 and looked AWFUL. Wilson easily outhustled him. I love Wilson, but come on... Every heavyweight of like two generations beat Wilson convincingly.
Man, love this fight. Actually have it on VHS, buried in storage somewhere. Looked like it would be a cakewalk for Mercer early, but Jones hung in and made a fight out of it. Loved the end when an exhausted Jones dragged himself up from the knockdown to go the distance, which got quite an ovation from the audience. Good stuff. Jones actually stopped Michael Bentt (as stated above) in one round before this, and upset Carl Williams after. Only a 9-11 (5 KOs) career record for Jones, but he made a bit of a name for himself around that time. IIRC, either in the commentary for this fight, or maybe another, it was mentioned that he held a full time job at UPS simultaneously with his boxing career.
I saw this fight live on ESPN. It was the first time I had seen either of them and was rooting for jones. Jerry actually hung in there tough
