Should Roy Jones Jr. Move Up To Cruiserweight?
January 30th, 2009
By William Mackay: Just looking at Roy Jones Jr’s recent fight against Joe Calzaghe in November, it’s pretty clear that Roy needs to move up to at least the cruiserweight division to give that a try rather than continuing to waste time campaigning as a light heavyweight. Although Jones, 40, is still one of the best fighters in the World as a light heavyweight, he doesn’t have the skills any longer in my estimation to compete against the top light heavyweights like Chad Dawson, Bernard Hopkins, Zsolt Erdei, Hugo Garay and Adrian Diaconu.
Instead of wasting valuable time fighting Omar Sheika on March 21st, Jones needs to get serious about his career and move up to the cruiserweight division where the pickings are much easier and where he has the skills and speed to compete against most of them. Jones is probably five years late on this move, since he’s been struggling for about that long in the light heavyweight division, losing to Antonio Tarver twice and Glen Johnson.
The latest loss to Calzaghe is more of an indication that Jones doesn’t have the speed to compete anymore at light heavyweight. The good thing is he still has good speed for a cruiserweight and much better skills than the vast majority of them. Granted, Jones took a one-sided beating from Calzaghe, but that’s excusable because Joe is considered to be one of the best in the business.
Calzaghe would have beaten probably most – if not all – the light heavyweights in the division on that night. Now, if Jones is smart, he’ll call off the fight to Sheika and try to line up a fight with one of the top cruiserweights in the division, someone like Alexander Alekseev or Wayne Braithwaite. Jones could probably handle either of these guys without too many problems.
Once he gets them out of the way, Jones will get a ton of good press and at the same time regain a lot of his lost confidence. From there, he needs to go after one of the champions, preferably someone like Cunningham. He’s probably the easiest of the champions and I can see Jones making quick work of him.
Beyond that, Jones needs to aim at British cruiserweight Macarinelli, who some people think is the top fighter now that David Haye has retired. Adamek is another fighter that people consider to be the top fighter, if not the second best fighter in the division.
If Jones can beat those two fighters, I will recapture much of his lost glory and set him up for a potential move against one of the heavyweight champions. Either of the Klitschko brothers would make for a great fight, in particular Vitali, who may only have a handful of fights left in him before he retires from the sport.
Tags: 8 Responses to “Should Roy Jones Jr. Move Up To Cruiserweight?”
Leave a Reply
please use above banner to link back to us!
It is possible that Jones (58-5, 38 KOs) could give any one of them a tough fight but probably not nearly enough to beat any one of them.
People peak and become an ‘old’ fighter at different times. Tyson was at his peak in his 20′s whereas Lewis was at his peak in his late 30′s. B-Hop is ageless and is better at the age of 43 than Chad Dawson will ever be.
Roy Jones has been past it for the last 5 years.
Your all harping on about his age but both B-Hop and Sugar Shane have proved that age need not stop you. What should stop him is is fading skills and an attempt to keep his truely brilliant reputation in tact.
He is the reason i fell in love with boxing. He is a magician with his hands.
Now though he this is not able to stop himself getting hit.
Get back to rapping….or maybe not.
He cant be short of a few quid lets be honest.
Roy Jones should retire or face weak opposition.
he was comftable at light heavy but hes just too old to compete with top class boxers over more than 5 rounds.
hes had his time, hes a true legend of the sport, nothing he achieves now can compare to his last 15 years in the sport, he was brilliant. why keep going at a lower level.
and move up a weight? what the hell for? do you want him killed.
By what you’ve said he’s gonna fight again at Light Heavy criuser and Heavy, he’s 40 for god sake who’s he gonna put on that much weight.
Let me get this clear. You never lose your skills. That’s why Bernard Hopkins is still an amazing boxer. He has got good not through natural ability but learning every little trick and skill in the book. No matter how old he gets he’ll always have those box of tricks. If your confidence is knocked you can still return to your box of tricks.
That’s why he beat Kelly Pavlik, Hopkins has been boxing so long and understands the technical side so much that he could predict everything Kelly was going to do. With Joe Calzaghe it was different, this guy fights like he’s playing Jazz, totally natural and flowing. There is no way to predict what he is doing so Bernard had to ‘stop’ him in his tracks and try and disrupt his rhythm. Bernards game plan was to throw one punch and hold.
Anyway lets take a look at Roy Jones Jr. The guy was so naturally talented he boxed like no one else. He had no idea what he was doing he just did it. After his first defeat he lost his confidence and thus couldn’t fall back on his bag of tricks.
I know quite alot about skills as I am a drummer. I’ve always been naturally gifted at drums and never had to practice. Some drummers spend hours upon hours praticing rudiments and this way of learning means that they’re are almost like robots, no matter how nervous they are the rudiment is ingrained in their brain. The way I play drums is purely instinctive and I have no idea how I am doing what I am doing, I am not even thinking while I’m playing it just kind of flows out. Anyway to make this relevant I played a massive gig and was so nervous before I got on stage and started thinking about what I was doing and just clammed up. As soon as I thought about it I just couldn’t do what I was doing, my hands just froze up. It was a disaster. Now I’m scared of gigs but can still play like a master in private. I think this is what has happened to Roy Jones Jr. Someone needs to give the guy a huge shot of confidence (the kind of confidence that comes with YOUTH!) and we’ll see that magic again.
Roy need not to fight anymore HE’S 40 years old and there’s nothing left to prove…If I were him I’ll try to rest my age old body before something else happen.
1)He doesn’t need to move up in weight, he needs to retire. At cruiserweight he’ll just get hit harder now he can’t move out of the way any more.
2) He’d have nothing to gain from this as no one cares about the cruiserweight division. It’s the least glamourous division in boxing which is why Haye left it in the first place and which is what Maccarinelli will do if he has any sense.