Old Clinton is perhaps being unfairly maligned in many recent discussions. Is he not Britain's premier light heavy of the last 30 years? And I say this in no way to cast aspersions at the depth of talent among British light heavyweights in recent history. Far from it. I believe Clinton is not being properly appreciated by many here.
I wouldn't consider that quit. He gave it his all and couldn't do much, Jones was just too much to handle back then. If anything, Woods deserves a lot of credit for taking this fight, flying over for it and trying his best.
Talent wise Calzaghe was better but he only had a few fights at that weight. However, Woods was quite a good LHW and fought a lot of good fighters, winning some losing some. A solid fighter.
I wouldn't either. He was taking a serious ass whooping within 5 rounds....the kind that made you think if the ref let it go all 12 Woods would become totally shot overnight. As I recall, Woods had a cut and the ref stopped it. But there were a few moments early that Woods tried to hammer Jones against the ropes so I think the effort was there, he was just in against someone way too much for him.
In modern history yes if you are going by resume at the weight. Over all he probably doesn't make the top 5. He is under rated these days, his third fight with Johnson is a classic. He let himself down against Tarver though. I know he had just lost a close friend days before the fight but he didn't show up and unfortunetly many people will remember him for that fight. I personally thought he could have beaten Tarver if he'd have performed that night.
Yeh, he lost his friend/sparring partner a few days before and if I recall he also had a miserable training camp and Clinton picked up his old trainer from his amateur days against Cloud.
He did OK the first few rounds.. why did he stop fighting? Reminnded me in a way of Mayweather quitting against Chavez when he was doing OK.
In the sixth round he was getting pasted with shots and did not return fire for about 2 minutes. The ref stopped it.
Roy Jones Jr. happened [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAlNk0ATOOw[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g63oRMwWf1U&feature=related[/ame] beat ol' Clinton up pretty solidly in 6 rounds.