Roy Jones defense against Tito

Good points

Winky has very long arms so he can protect his body very well. And maybe it has to do with his shorts being somewhat high, but oh well.

Jones has a decent high guard, but it leaves him succeptable to body shots and also to shots down the middle as you pointed out. His faded reflexes are the cause of his lack of head movement. This would spell trouble against guys like Kessler, Dawson, Johnson, Calzaghe, Pavlik.

 

Deception is key to unorthodox defense, and setting up punches though. Shoulder roll style is pretty much the same, offers what appears to be a wide open straight right hand to the head.. Its there, but also one of the first punches the person with that defense is looking for.

 

Winkys arms aren't any longer, when Winky defends these days he has his elbows tucked and chin down, he's good at seeing punches so he just has to move his arms a couple of inches to block the body shots, Roy has his arms up too high because he is so scared of getting hit in the head, compare the two- the only difference is Roy has his hands unnecessarily higher

 

When Roy was in his prime he'd use the earmuffs but the middle opening would be closed as he'd slip the straight punch coming down the middle. Glen exploited this to great effect, Tarver went around it when Roy kept his glove mere inches too far off the chin. Roy looked like he watched the film and noticed the necessity of the head movement when he covers along the ropes. He gave a lot of credit to his sparring partners, and in this case i could see his sparring partners exploiting his defensive deficiencies thus allowing him to make adjustments in camp. He fought a smart fight, and looked real quick. I hope to see him again.

 

The big difference is that Winky does cover up both the body and the head just about simultaneously.
.....and Winky uses a stiff jab when his opponent is through punching at his arms.

.....Unlike Winky who always uses his jab to keep busy and score points off of his turtle shell defense, Jones was actually being outjabbed by Tito and because of it, had to many stretches in the fight where he did little offensively.
Not to mention that body shots Galore by Trinidad were being landed all through the first 9 rounds of the fight, a pity that judges dont give those body shots much credence.

One thing is for certain, Jones cant use that high guard defense against a physically strong fighter like Glenn Johnson.
A fighter like Johnson keeps on punching and physically wearing on you as he pushes you back with his physical strenghth.
That has been proven, as Jones used that highguard defense against Johnson and Johnson's nonstop punching and physical strenghth wore Jones plum out.

Thats the one thing that was lacking in Trinidad's attack. I thought he did much better than Johnson in getting through the guard to both head and body, but he was lacking in physical strenghth and could'nt walk Jones down with physical strenghth.
Because of it, it was actually Jones who mid to late rounds walked Trinidad down and wore on him, that Trinidad had little left for the final three rounds.

 

I think whats going on with Jones is a bit of a transformation to conventional boxer or as close as he can get ..He can no longer move out the way of punches like he use to but what he can do is extend his career by using a tighter defense ..

 

If thats the case, he still got hit plenty by Tito, when a figher like Winky who is a real expert on the technicalities of the turtle defense went virtually the entire fight without being touched.

That type of defense however is more effective against a smaller opponent who is'nt as physcially strong......

.....we saw what a fighter who is just as physically strong or more so than Winky was able to do to crack that type of defense and score points.
I'm talking about what Jermaine Taylor and then Bernard Hopkins were able to do against Winky to outscore him.