Roy Jones Jr. vs. Rodney Moore results

By Boxing News - 08/14/2016 - Comments

By Patrick McHugh: Roy Jones Jr. pot-shotted his way to a dull 10 round unanimous decision over 40-year-old journeyman Rodney Moore (17-12-2, 7 KOs) last Saturday night at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Florida. Like in all of his fights, the 47-year-old Jones (64-9, 46 KOs) fought with his hands down by his sides and did a lot of showboating and taunting of the badly over-matched Moore.

The judges scored the fight 100-90, 100-90 and 100-90. That’s about right because there was no way that Moore won any of the rounds because he was just following the very old looking Jones around the ring without throwing punches. The looked more like a sparring match between two middle-aged men than it did as a real fight.

Jones was occasionally getting hit due to him holding his hands down by his sides. He used to be able to move his hands of quickly to block incoming shots or move out of the way of the punches. Not anymore. Jones gets hit nowadays when he has his hands down, and he needs to bring them up to protect his hands because he’s not that fast anymore.

The crowd seemed subdued due to the glacial pace of the fight and the lack of action. Jones was jabbing, throwing single pot shots and doing a lot of leaning forward to clown Moore. This fighting style might have been pleasing to boxing fans earlier in Jones’ career when he had blazing fast hand speed and great reflexes, but it’s not pleasing anymore. The new generation of boxing fans now like to see pure sluggers like IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, because those two fighters mix it up with their opponents and are willing to get hit in order to land their big power shots. Jones is more of the old type of fighter that was popular in the past. Him and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are the old generation of fighters that played the hit and not get hit role inside the ring. That kind of style wears thing because it’s so boring to watch for a lot of boxing fans there’s not enough action to keep the fight interesting.

Moore, 40, lost his 10th straight fight dating back to 2003. It’s hard to believe that Moore hasn’t won a fight since 2002. That’s 14 years since Moore last won a fight. You have to ask the question of why Jones would ever fight someone like that to begin with. But Moore was great compared to Jones’ last opponent Vyron Phillips (0-1), who was making his pro debut against Jones last March. It’s hard to believe a former multi-belt world champion like Jones is now reduced to fighting guys making their pro debut or fighters that haven’t won a fight in 14 years like Moore. I don’t see the point of fights like this. It’s not fair to the paying boxing fans that come to see Jones fight. It’s not fair to the fighters that are selected for Jones to beat, because they have no chance against a guy with the technical skills and experience that Jones still possesses.

This was Jones’ second straight win since being knocked out in four rounds by Enzo Maccarinelli last December. Jones fought the same way against Maccarinelli as he did tonight by holding his hands down by his sides. The taller 6’3” took advantage of Jones’ low guard to knock him unconscious in the 4th. What’s troubling is that Jones hasn’t fixed the mistakes that he made in the Maccarinelli fight. In his last two bouts against Phillips and Moore, Jones still fought with his hands down by his sides and still was doing a lot of leaning forward to tempt them to try and hit him. Fortunately for Jones, those guys were too slow and limited to take advantage of Jones’ low guard much of the time. A good fighter would be all over Jones and would knock him out just like Maccarinelli did. Even Moore was able to hit Jones last night with a number of his shots. The only problem that Moore had was he wasn’t throwing a lot of punches. He was just some old guy that came into the fight with nine consecutive losses that was brought in as a showcase fight for Jones.

You can only hope that Jones doesn’t drag out his career much longer like this because it’s sad to see him fighting this level of opposition and lookin as bad as he does. If Jones was an old singer that was reduced to having nightly shows in Las Vegas, Nevada, it wouldn’t be so bad. There would be enough fans that wouldn’t mind seeing an old singer try and belt out some tunes for nostalgic purposes, but he’s a professional fighter. Boxing is a young man’s sport and it’s kind of sad to see someone Jones’ age still fighting. He’s only three years away from 50. 47 isn’t the new 30, believe me.