Roy Jones Jr. Wants Match With Calzaghe

By Boxing News - 12/29/2007 - Comments

On last nights’ ESPN telecast, former light heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. (51-4, 38 KOs) said that he wants to fight super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe, after he, Jones, stops Felix Trinidad (42-2, 35 KOs) in the fourth round in their scheduled 12-round bout on January 19th at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Jones, 38, appears to be completely overlooking the 35 year-old Trinidad, treating him as if victory is a forgone conclusion. Jones, it seems, has been looking too closely at Trinidad’s last fight in which he lost a lopsided decision to Winky Wright in May 2005, afterwards leading to another retirement by Trinidad.

Jones, however, would like nothing better than to dispatch Trinidad in an impressive fashion, as that would be bait for him to use in trying to line up a bout with Calzaghe. At this stage, it’s not a fight that many fans would like to see, least of all Calzaghe himself, as Jones is far past him prime now, having lost three out of his last five fights, with two of the losses resulting in vicious knockouts of Jones. Though Jones has rebounded with two consecutive wins, his competition – Anthony Hanshaw and Prince Badi Ajamu – aren’t top 10 fighters, hence it takes away the luster from Jones’ accomplishment.

Even then, Jones barely beat Hanshaw, looking bad as he was forced to fight virtually the entire fight while trapped against the ropes, taking big shots over and over. I scored the fight a draw, and that was really me being kind to Jones, who looked completely shot as a fighter. Calzaghe wouldn’t likely be interested in fighting Jones based on how he’s appeared in recent fights, and even with a victory over Trinidad, it would be presumptuous for Jones to assume that Calzaghe would want to waste time fighting him.

That’s not to say that Calzaghe cares about giving the fans an entertaining fight, because he’s pretty much made it clear that he’s mainly interested in getting paid well in his final fights of his career, regardless of who he has to fight to get the money. For most people, Jones is hardly much different that watching Calzaghe face the 43 year-old Hopkins, even if Bernard has a little more left in the tank than Jones. It’s still not the same as Calzaghe taking on the top talent in the super middleweight or light heavyweight division, as he would have big problems should be mix it up with someone, say, like Chad Dawson or Lucian Bute.



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