By Jim Dower: Boxing great Roy Jones Jr. (65-9, 47 KOs) will be ending his 29-year pro career tonight in his cruiserweight fight against Scott Sigmon (30-11-1, 16 KOs) at the Bay Center in Pensacola, Florida.
The 49-year-old former 4 division world champion Jones has decided that after nearly 30 years in the sport that it’s time for him to walk away into the sunset. Jones recently turned 49 last month on January 16th, and that’s obviously an age where few you see very few fighters.
Jones is expected to beat the 30-year-old Sigmon, who comes into the fight with 8 losses out of his last 17 fights. You never know though. Sigmon has 10th round knockout win over the respectable Jessie Nicklow in March 2014, and he could give Jones a lot of problems in this fight. Sigmon has only been stopped on 5 occasions during his 10-year pro career and he’s gone the distance with Matt Korobov, Luis Arias and J’Leon Love. Sigmon lasted until the 7th against former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and he made it to the 8th round against Caleb Traux.
Due to Sigmon’s age and his toughness, he might have a chance of beating Jones tonight if he can last long enough to test his chin. Jones was knocked out by Enzo Maccarinelli in the 4th round in December 2015. Jones has won last 3 fights in beating Bobby Gunn, Rodney Moore and Vyron Phillips. Those were very beatable opposition.
“It’s been a wonderful career,” Jones said via Fight News this week. “We’ve had a great time. I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. I came in making history and I’m going out making history, so we’re doing it like we’re supposed to do.”
Jones and Sigmon are fighting for the vacant World Boxing Union cruiserweight title. It’s not one of the major world titles.
Jones was considered the best fighter in the sport of boxing during 1990s. He was still fighting at a high level until 2004. His career went downwards after that due to a loss of speed and his punch resistance seeming to decrease.
Last month, Jones Jr. said he feels he’s the best fighter of all time in the sport, and he ranks himself above Sugar Ray Robinson. There are a lot of boxing fans that disagree with Jones, but he’s certainly one of the best fighters of all time. Whether Jones was superior to Robinson or Muhammad Ali is a subjective thing. Both of those fighters were extremely talented, and they dominated the sport during their best years in their era, as did Jones.
”Pound-for-pound the greatest of all time? It isn’t hard to figure out, Roy Jones Jr, is your kind of the hill,” Jones Jr. said.
What hurts Jones from being seen as the best was how he stayed too long in the sport. Jones was still fighting long after he’d lost his skills, and he ended up getting beaten 8 times during the last part of his career. Jones was no longer facing the best during the last 7 years of his career. He was fighting 2nd tier opposition for paydays and mostly winning, but he would occasionally get beaten.