Roy Jones Jr. still hasn’t retired yet

By Boxing News - 02/11/2016 - Comments

jones4By Tim Fletcher: Earlier this week, 47-year-old Roy Jones Jr. (62-9, 45 KOs) was expected to announce his retirement from the sport. However, he still hasn’t pulled the trigger by making an announcement. According to Russian news reports, Jones Jr. was going to hang up his gloves this week following his fourth round knockout loss to Enzo Maccarinelli last December in Moscow.

It was obviously an embarrassing moment for Jones Jr. because he had just been granted Russian citizenship without having to give up his American citizenship. The Russian fans flocked to see Jones Jr. fight Maccarinelli, but were greeted by an old and decrepit looking Jones, who did little more than fight with his back against the ropes for four rounds in the process of being stopped.

Last Wednesday, Jones Jr. told the Russian media that he still had not made a decision yet whether he would be hanging up the gloves. You can partly understand why Jones might not want to retire. He makes decent money fighting normally over-matched weak opponents. Why would Jones want to give up something like that for the time being? If fans are still interested in seeing Jones Jr, who matter who he faces, then it’s got to be difficult for him to walk away from the sport.

For Jones, he’s been beaten by the following fighters in the last 12 years: Antonio Tarver x 2, Glen Johnson, Joe Calzaghe, Danny Green, Bernard Hopkins, Denis Lebedev, and Enzo Maccarinelli. Of those defeats, five of them have come by vicious knockouts. None of the knockouts was simple ones. In each case, Jones looked badly hurt after being knocked out.

You can argue that Jones would not have lost to any of those fighters if he had fought them in his prime. That is the problem. Jones stuck around the sport 12 years too long and should have retired when he was in his mid-30s instead of sticking it out until he was 47.

“Roy has not yet made an official decision about retiring, but in the past, he has always mentioned that he wants to do his last fight in Pensacola,” John Wirt, CEO of Jones’ Square Ring Promotions, told ESPN.com. “I spoke to his manager, McGee [Wright], about it and he said that he has not discussed [a farewell fight] with Roy because this is something for Roy to bring up if and when Roy decides to do it.”

There’s a possibility that Jones could make a farewell bout in his hometown city of Pensacola, Florida. There’s no word about whether Jones would take a farewell bout in front of his Russian fans in his adopted country of Russia or not.

It would make sense for Jones to fight there again because it would give him a chance to end his career on a high note in Russia, where Jones has a record of 2-2. In addition to being stopped by Maccarinelli in Russia, Jones was also beaten by Denis Lebedev in May 2011. Jones’ two wins in Russia came against 2nd tier fighters Zine Eddine Benmakhlouf and Harry Atiyo.



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