By Jim Dower: 44-year-old former four division world champion Roy Jones Jr. (57-8, 40 KO’s) easily defeated the much bigger French fighter Zine Eddine Benmakhlouf (17-4-1, 8 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to capture the vacant WBU cruiserweight title on Saturday night at the Dynamo Palace of Sports in Krylatskoye, Moscow, Russia.

The final judges scores were 120-108, 119-109 and 118-111.

Jones knocked the 36-year-old Benmakhlouf down with a hard left hook in the 3rd round in a shot that sent Benmakhlouf in a delayed reaction. Jones also had Benmakhlouf hurt in several other rounds as well. It seemed the only thing that kept Benmakhlouf on his feet was that he was so much bigger than Jones Jr. The size difference between the two fighters was significant.

Benmakhlouf fought with anger through much of the fight. After the 2nd round, he complained bitterly to the referee after Jones Jr. had hit him with a shot behind the head. However, Jones Jr. was just repaying Benmakhlouf for a clear rabbit punch he had landed earlier in the round. It seemed to bother Benmakhlouf that Jones Jr. had repaid him with the same type of punch.

Benmakhlouf kept throwing punches after the bell had sounded in the 9th, and he had to be pulled away from Jones Jr. by the referee. Benmakhlouf just looked angry for some reason, and it seemed strange because he was getting so badly dominated in the fight with Jones Jr’s pot shots.

After the 12th round had ended, Benmakhlouf angrily still tried to get get and Jones Jr. and the referee had to stop him. At this point it was too late for him to do anything because he’d already taken a beating for 12 rounds.

Benmakhlouf’s face was badly swollen up by Jones Jr’s punches with bad swelling under both of his eyes.

Although this was a good win for Jones Jr., this wasn’t the kind of an opponent that would make the world take notice. Benmakhlouf was nowhere near the same class as the top fighters in the cruiserweight division like Marco Huck, Denis Lebedev, Yoan Pablo Hernandez and Krzystof Wlodarcyk. Jones Jr. would have had a really tough time in this fight had one of those fighters been in the ring with him instead of this guy.