Would have sworn he said that (or his camp) after the first Tarver fight. Should have never gave him a rematch.
Yeah, as mentioned above he said it immediately after his first fight with Tarver, which of course had turned out to be a much tougher examination than most people had predicted beforehand. Said that boiling back down to 175 lb so soon after facing Ruiz had left him feeling pretty flat, and that while he would give Tarver a rematch, it almost certainly wasn't going to be at Light-Heavyweight, as he was unsure whether he could make the weight comfortably anymore. Said that the likelihood was retirement if he couldn't get a fight with Tyson's charred remains at Heavyweight in 2004. That said - as late as 2008 Jones was talking about potentially slimming himself all the way down to 168 lb for the planned Calzaghe fight so that both Calzaghe's Super-Middleweight and Light-Heavyweight titles could be on the line, ala Leonard-Lalonde twenty years earlier: https://www.*******.com/roy-jones-jr-calzaghe-fight-two-titles-on-november-8--15062. He also talked about going back down to Super-Middleweight in 2000 after beating Harding, where in his post-fight interview he reiterated that he was really a natural Super-Middle to was just good enough to fight at 175. Even during Roy's reign at Light-Heavyweight from 1997 - 2003, he tended to be outweighed by a good 5 or 6 lb by his opponents on fight night - he was never a particularly big Light-Heavyweight. As touched upon after Tarver I, I think it was coming back down to Light-Heavyweight so soon after Ruiz which was the problem, rather than returning there full stop. He'd have been better-advised to hold off facing Tarver for another few months or making a pit-stop at Cruiserweight (possibly for a Toney rematch) in late 2003 weighing in at something like 185 lb to ease his way back down, and probably take another title in the process.
After the first Tarver fight I remember him saying things like having to starve himself and always being hungry just to make it back to Lt. Heavy. It also seemed Roy didn't care to keep fighting much and he was talking about retiring long before the Ruiz fight. Surprised me he ended up going on for so long the way he did.
Yes. Towards the end of his career he said that he should have had a good year out before coming back. But the truth is, unless he'd have been willing to change his style to implement his age, losses were inevitable. Mackie Shilstone is also on record, stating that he told Roy not to drop back down from HW, as losing muscle in a short space of time as well at an advanced age, can effect the immune system. Antonio Tarver, Chris Byrd and Chad Dawson also had similar struggles when they burnt muscle to drop down in weight.
