Reworking a Career: Roy Jones Jr

Jones was robbed at the Olympics in South Korea, not Germany. He was happy enough to travel later in his career (and won a very debatable decision in Poland, against a Pole).

Rocco was German! So if that DQ was a robbery, then they actually robbed the German and favoured the Pole. Rocchigiani also lost a very contentious decision, in Germany, to Chris Eubank. Tyson Fury beat Wlad in Germany as well, so it's not like everyone who goes there gets robbed.

Every belt Jones held had been won by Dariusz first and not lost in the ring, except the WBC which was won by Rocchigiani and then handed back to Jones. Dariusz even beat Jones to the lineal title first (if you buy into all that), but thanks to some convoluted logic the Ring handed it to Jones instead. So yeah, why shouldn't he go to Germany to beat the man who was, by rights, the Man in the division?

 

I don’t think top 5 is out of the question.

 

@George Crowcroft I like what you tried to do here, but it just isn't possible. The very second you mention Jones Jr and DM in the same thread, it gets overtaken.

Basically what you say makes him the man from MW to CW. Which is an amazing achievement.

It also gives him a slightly stronger resume.

It's hard to say how much difference what you propose actually makes imo.

He'd still be a flash in the pan at MW.

Most consider him the best SMW ever regardless.

Linearity lost its way at LHW and no one disputes Jones was the best whilst he was there.

The CW titles add a bit I suppose, but he'd already beaten Ruiz who was better than the CW guys out there anyways.

That's me thinking out loud.

As a fighter, beating prime pressure fighters like Benn and Jirov would be a huge bonus to him.

Achievement wise, securing linearity in 4 divisions is something very few have done.

Resume wise there's no question marks left out.

I'd say the combination of those factors probably ranks him a above the likes of Moore, Ali, Hagler and Pep. And in line with the likes of Charles, Greg and Langford.

So putting that together we get a lock for the top ten.

In fact he'd probably be called the modern day Bob Fitzsimmons, so wherever people rank him now, one spot above.

 

Dariusz could of kept the belts if he dumped the WBO and fought the WBA and IBF mandatories. Instead he prefered to keep the WBO because they barely enforced mandatories. He also didn't face his mandatory. If he kept the IBF and WBA would have gone to purse bids and the fights are likely won by American promoters who'd put up more money. It was easier to keep the WBO and pick and choose opposition in Germany. By doing this he didn't have to face Jones, Reggie Johnson or Del Valle

In reality HBO wasn't putting up enough money to make the fight lucrative for Jones and Michaelczewski. Both wanted too much money. Jones was getting the bulk of HBO money and not going PPV for the most part. Jones asked for $10m to face Michaelczewski, which is a little bit more than his standard fee. Michaelczewski would of asked for career high money to face Jones and was making loads selling out stadiums in Germany. If Jones and Michaelczewski were equally built up by HBO it could of gone PPV and then it's possible. Without going PPV and doing 500k buys it's not feesable to pay them both. Both fighters wanted the fight, they just wanted to be reasonably compensated for it.

 

By Jason Probst
Maxboxing.com

With another mandatory defense scheduled for Saturday in Portland, Oregon, light heavyweight champion Roy Jones says he's ready for Clinton Woods despite another unknown challenger with dubious credentials. In a Monday morning teleconference call with national media, Jones explained his position on a variety of subjects and expounded on his approach to the game of boxing, both in the ring and at the negotiating table.

Originally hoping to pit Jones against Vassily Jirov, HBO's efforts at the match broke down for numerous reasons. Woods took Jones to court to force his mandatory shot; and HBO's offer of a half-million more for the light heavyweight king to take on the IBF cruiserweight champ was not satisfactory, in his estimation.

"They only offered me a half million more to fight Jirov than Woods. Why would I do that? I don't think (Woods) did a damned thing to earn a shot at me. They threatened to strip me and I'm not gonna give up my titles like that. I cannot help it. I love being champion," Jones said.

When pressed about the recent decision of Marco Antonio Barrera to fight sans belts, Roy was diplomatic but unbending in the suggestion that he do the same.

"I'm not trying to be Barrera. He's a great champion and he does what he does. That works for Barrera. It don't work for Roy."

Jones recently admitted that what he knows of his challenger isn't much, but it is enough.

"His ass is in trouble," went the refrain. "Anybody can bring you your lunch every day. I take it dead serious. Watch me next week. I don't be playin'."

Woods figures to be in deep water. His 32-1 record is a masterpiece of careful matchmaking. Few of his foes have less than a half-dozen losses, at least, and those that don't have scant more wins than those defeats. Essentially, his career has been a series of tune-ups for other tune-ups.

Jones could possibly be distracted by the lure of bouts with Bernard Hopkins, Jirov, John Ruiz, his music career, his acting bug, his love of fighting cocks, or any of a million things; however he would probably still be even-money contemplating all these while fighting Woods on a skateboard (imagine Tony Hawk in Roy's corner between rounds… yet another commercial duo with lucrative advertising possibilities).

The Hopkins bout is still theoretical at best, and Jones still poo-poos the feasibility of such a bout for many reasons, most of all, the fact that nobody mentions the weight they're supposed to be fighting at (a salient-if-overlooked factor mentioned in last week's Neutral Corner).

"That's exactly it," Jones crossly replied when asked about poundage limit. "That's what nobody's talking about. That psycho was talking 'bout it in Puerto Rico and he never mentions it. Nobody's telling me what weight I'm gonna be fighting at. The most I could do is 168 the day before the bout."

Given that Hopkins once insisted that super middleweight foe Syd Vanderpool reach a day-of 160-pound weight, it's not likely he'd be willing to let Jones come into the ring at 180-plus pounds after reaching 168.

Jones concludes that the math is simple. He offered Hopkins $6 million to fight him.

"That's more than his next biggest purse against Trinidad," said Roy ($3 million, but who's counting?). Hopkins can take it or leave it.

"Hopkins asking for 10 million is the best way to say no without saying no, you dig?' Jones concluded. "But nobody will write that. Why do Roy got to be the one to give everybody a chance and help them make money?"

The prospects for a Dariusz Michalczewski bout are "$20-25 million to fight him in Germany. After what happened in Korea, that's what I need. He barely beat Richard Hall. They can say linear all they want to. Who got a win over James Toney, Reggie Johnson, Vinny Pazienza, and Hopkins? He don't wanna fight these guys."

Forced to periodically win fights with one hand, or take mustard off his punches to preserve a marginal one, Jones didn't sweat the possibility of something going awry this weekend in the Rose Garden, where the bout has aroused a good deal of local interest in the Pacific Northwest.

"Nothing can stop me. My hands can't stop me," he said. "The only thing that can stop me is God."

In the best case scenario, Jones sees himself fighting 3-4 more years if the big fights he wants come off. If he keeps hitting the negotiating wall, though, and can't get some compelling bouts, he'll finish out his HBO contract and call it quits in 2 years.

"God blessed me with this. There's a lot of people that wish they could find what God blessed them with. To be in this position it's like, damn, look what God gave you. I'm not gonna sit on this, I'm gonna go to work with it," Jones said. "For me not to give my all would be a sin."

 

Berlenbach,

It doesn’t matter if it was South Korea. He was robbed, he was psychologically scarred from it, and he didn’t think he’d get fair judging in Germany.

Yes, he was happy enough to travel when he was older. But his circumstances were obviously very different at that stage. He was 43 years of age and only a shell of the fighter he’d once been. He had nothing to lose at that stage. He wasn’t earning big pay days and he didn’t have a title. That’s not the same as back in 2001, where it would been a huge fight where he’d have been putting every major title on the line.

I know he was. The point is, he’d seen Dariusz pathetically feign injury in order to get his opponent disqualified.

I never said everyone gets robbed. But Roy had valid reasons why he didn’t want to go. In my opinion, he shouldn’t be criticised for it.

What the WBC did was absolutely disgusting.

Nobody can condone their actions.

Dariusz wasn’t the ‘Man’ in the division.

Roy had beaten McCallum, Griffin and Reggie.

Dariusz had beaten Hill.

Roy destroyed Hill afterwards.

Yes, they should have fought. But again, I can’t criticise Roy for not having taken 3 belts to Germany.

 

Dariusz was stripped of one of the belts (I forget which) for the crime of having it at the same time he held the WBO belt, which they didn't recognise at the time.

The other he lost for not making a mandatory defense against William Guthrie within 30 days.

Both absurd reasons.

 

Exactly he needed to dump the WBO, which wasn't considered a proper belt at the time. The Guthrie defense was actually 60 days if what I read is correct. He could of defended against Guthrie but chose not to

 

Dariusz was the Man. He beat Hill before Jones did. He unified three of the four belts. Technically he unified all four, as he was the first to beat Rocco after the WBC fiasco as well.

Jones picked up the belts that were stripped from Dariusz and Rocco for political reasons but he never beat the men who held those belts before him. Fair enough if Roy feared being robbed in Germany. But it meant he missed out on what would have been a huge legacy fight for him (even more brownie points if he actually beat Dariusz in Germany) and it's why we're still talking about this two decades on.

 

Yes, Dariusz was the man who Roy had to face. But Dariusz hadn’t proved that he was the best LHW in the world.

There’s no doubt that Roy’s legacy takes a hit for the fight not happening. But again, in my honest opinion, he doesn’t deserve any criticism for not having gone to Germany.

Dariusz never seemed fazed by being stripped.

He seemed more than content to defend his lightly regarded WBO belt against mostly B and C class fighters.