By Chris Williams: If you had the chance to listen to HBO analyst Roy Jones Jr’s commentary of the 2nd round of action in last night’s fight between WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov, you have to wonder which fight Jones Jr. was watching because he seemed to be way off the board with his analysis of what was happening in the round.
In the 2nd round, Provodnikov had Bradley staggering all around the ring, and basically on the verge of being stopped. It was completely one-sided during the entire round, and while Bradley was landing, he had no power on his shots and his legs were unsteady under him. However, Jones Jr. was insisting that it Provodnikov was hurt as well despite the fact that he showed no signs of being hurt at any given time. I never saw Provodnikov stagger or slow down his forward momentum in going after a badly hurt Bradley.
Here are some of the comments that Jones Jr. said on HBO last night during the 2nd round: “Provodnikov is hurt too. Both of those guys are hurt. So they were hurting one another in that round. You have to remember that Bradley was off for 10 months, so to take a fight like this off of a 10 month layoff tells you a lot about Bradley.”
Later on in the fight in the 11th round, Jones Jr. said “I don’t think Provodnikov can hurt him anymore.”
When HBO analyst Max Kellerman pointed out that Provodnikov had already proven that he can hurt Bradley over and over again all throughout the fight, Jones Jr. responded with “Yeah, but I think Bradley is starting to hurt him [Provodnikov] more than he’s hurting Bradley now. No, he’s [Provodnikov] not hurting him at all now because he’s hitting him with punches high on the head. Punches high on the head don’t bother Bradley.”
In the 11th, Provodnikov was teeing off on Bradley in a mostly one-sided comeback round for Provodnikov. It looked like Provodnikov was hurting Bradley, and in the 12th round, he dropped Bradley after badly hurting him with a right hand. Jones Jr. then said “He’s [Bradley] tired.”
No, Bradley wasn’t tired, he was hurt.
I think Jones Jr. is a great analyst during most of the fights he covers, but he seemed to be way, way off last night in his commenting of what was happening in the Bradley-Provodnikov fight.
Comments are closed.