Some thoughts on re-watching Roy Jones Jr vs Antonio Tarver 1...

I hadn't watched this fight in years until last night, and a few things struck me:



Thought#1: Jones won the fight


I remember at the time feeling sure that Tarver won the fight and agreeing with the crowd shouting "Bull-****!" at the end. I was (and still am) a bit of a Jones fan, but I felt he'd escaped with a gift back then.

However, I re-scored the fight last night:

R1: Tarver 10-9
R2: Tarver 10-9
R3: Jones 10-9
R4: Jones 10-9
R5: Jones 10-9
R6: Jones 10-9
R7: Tarver 10-9
R8: Tarver 10-9
R9: 10-10
R10: Tarver 10-9
R11: Jones 10-9
R12: Jones 10-9

TOTAL: Jones 115-114 Tarver



Thought#2: Jones was physically gone by then. His stamina was massively declined, as was his power


By round 7, it was blindingly obvious that Jones was exhausted. And this fight was no intense, draining, frenetic war, this was a slow paced fight. And Jones was still on the ropes with his mouth open sucking in breath and not punching, and sitting in the corner like he had just run a marathon between rounds.

This was a guy who, in the mid-late 90s, had been able to produce muscle-explosions of offence throughout all twelve rounds - and look as fresh at the end of the fight as he did at the start.

Jones should've realized after that fight that his weight issues and age meant he could no longer fight like himself anymore. I wish he had.



Thought#3: This fight brings up the problematic issue of Jones's chin

People seem to be divided on here as to whether (a) Jones always had a weak chin but he never got hit cleanly enough to expose it until Tarver II, or (b) Jones's chin was always solid until the weight issues following the Ruiz fight ****ed him up physically and messed with his punch resistance.

I have always fallen into category (b), but watching the fight last night has caused me to ponder on this. Jones's chin is rock solid vs Tarver, he is hit often with very hard straight punches right through the middle of his guard, punches that snap his head back, and Tarver was a pretty decent puncher, but Roy shakes everything off. Now, I have no idea where I stand on the issue of Jones's chin!



Thought#4: A peak Jones Jr would have dismantled Tarver with ease

Jones's stamina was dreadful in that fight, he had to take several rounds off, and it looked to me like his power had declined substantially, as hands which had decimated so many top fighters were now having no real effect on Tarver (at least the head shots weren't, Jones's ripping bodyshots did appear to back Tarver off a few times).

And yet whenever Jones mustered up the energy to keep the fight in the centre of the ring, he was winning pretty handily. His cobra-like leaps in were making Tarver look pedestrian and ordinary. The Superman lightheavyweight Jones of the rematch with Griffin and the KO of Virgil Hill would have beaten Tarver down, like a slightly more competitive version of Jones vs Richard Hall.



Thought#5: In many ways, this was one of Jones's greatest victories


On my card, going into the 11th, Jones hadn't won a round since the 6th. He looked worn out, and Tarver was firmly on control going into the championship rounds. Jones's trainer told him he had to win the last two BIG...

...and when the chips were down, Jones delivered IMO.

People talk about Jones's "glass jaw", "glass heart", etc, but the facts are that (a) he had taken more clean hard shots in this fight than ever before, (b) he was more tired than ever before, (c) he was no longer the explosive, energetic fighter he had been, he longer had the ability to simply blow his opponent out of the water... and yet he still bit down, and fought through it to win those last 2, and get the W.

Tarver was the fresher fighter and he was the one with the extreme motivation of being close to becoming the first man to legitimately defeat the p4p#1, and yet it was Jones who produced the awesome effort to win those last 6 minutes.

Considering that Tarver was one of the best and most prominent lightheavys of the 00s and considering the condition of Jones in the ring, I'd say this was one of Roy's very best victories.




What do you think? :bbb

 

I just hope that RJJ is remembered for the fighter he was in his prime and not the faded punchbag we now see. Its such a shame that he has not retired already, i just hope his legacy wont be tarnished in the long run.

 

Good post. Someone posted an article about Jones leading up to this fight the other day, he basically starved himself to get back to light heavy, he really punished his body just to make weight. The fact that he was drained and weakened that much and he still manged to pull out the win shows that he had that champion heart. I agree, one of his best wins and it would of been a great way to end his career. Jones showed he had a good chin in this fight.

 

Close but clear win for Jones... i can't see how anybody could score it differently. Tarver would go minutes without doing anything. What really annoys me is that the HBO staff all agreed that Jones was winning but in the rematch they all changed their mind based on the popular opinion... which i think is really weak

 

Jones's chin seemed alright earlier when he got tagged. He wasn't hit with frequency, but it wasn't like he was never touched at all. Usually when he got hit, he seemed to have good punch resistance up until the Tarver rematch.

Jones's vulnerability seemed to be more around the temple area than his chin. Of course there was the Tarver KO which was on the chin, but for the rest of Jones's problems after that, it was always punches high on the head that hurt him. The Johnson KO came from a punch around the temple area. Jones seemed to see it coming, tried to roll with it, and still got KTFO. Tarver hurt Jones in the 11th of the rubber match with a right hook to the temple. Green hurt Jones with a punch high on the head.

Roy took some decent shots from Tarver in the first fight, I remember him eating one around the temple area and handling it pretty well. In regards to Roy's punch resistance being drastically affected by the move down in weight, his punch resistance seemed fine in the first Tarver fight.

 

Some good points. As for his punch resistance we must remember that Jones had to lose the weight but he had to lose all muscle which is not good and foolish of him to do so fast. When you are burning muscle you will become fatigue easier. When you are fatigue in a fight it weakens you therefore your punch resistance would be at risk as well. Nobody has ever seen Roy Jones get tired in a fight and he was tired after the 4th round in the Tarver fight. I do think he won the fight as well.

 

Very good post. I think that win is underrated but RJJ probably should have gone down to CW and tried to be champ there. The Tarver was not even that big Tarver was relatively unknown but obviously the No 1 contender.

 

In a way, it wasn't all that different from Pascal vs Hopkins. After the first couple of rounds, it seemed the victory was staring the fresher man in the face, but then he inexplicably stopped throwing, and allowed the older yet hungrier man to get back into control.

 

i think you should stop ducking questions you little ****in *****

 

I think you should keep up your record of producing elite boxing threads. Care to post any now???












Didn't think so you brainless shitbag: :smoke

 

This fight is what the Chael Sonnen fight was for Anderson Silva, in my eyes.

 

Let's face facts, Tarver pwned Jones twice. He brutally Shattered his Fragile Glass Mandible in front of a global audience of millions.:roflatsch

This thread is a joke. :dead:dead

 

Good post Popkins. Jones definitely was not the fighter he used to be after returning to lhw.

 

I just wanna say nice work with the OP.

:thumbsup

 

its the kind of thread a ring comic / hbo puppett would make trying to impress his american buddies by sucking on the drug cheating balls of roy jones :-(

fragile popkins also supports digracefull drug cheat james toney who drew with 11 defeat sanderline williams in his prime