Calzaghe-Jones: Is This Fight Worth Paying For?

By Boxing News - 11/08/2008 - Comments

Image: Calzaghe-Jones: Is This Fight Worth Paying For?By Dan Ambrose: Joe Calzaghe attempts to defeat a legend tonight in facing Roy Jones Jr., 40, who appears to have overstayed his career by five years. Whether Calzaghe gets the win or not, he’ll likely get little credit for it. Jones hasn’t been the same fighter he once during his pound for pound boxing form heyday of the 90s since as far back as 2003.

As such, any victories over Jones at this stage is going to be colored with the perception that he is well past his prime, which will likely rob Calzaghe from the fan adoration he would have normally have received if he had met up with Jones years ago rather than now. However, Calzaghe will be paid well and he’ll have that to console his hurt feelings into his promised retirement. Calzaghe has dominated the super middleweight division since turning professional in 1993, and has only rarely had an opponent that could hang with him.

That probably won’t change tonight with Jones, who no longer has the hand speed, foot movement or strength to fight in the center of the ring. He’s moved on from his former style of fighting in which he would circle the ring, attacking with blinding shots, and has turned into more of a rope a dope fighter. An argument can be made that Jones probably doesn’t deserve to be in the same ring with Calzaghe at this point, give his faded skills.

That said, Jones is still ranked at the top of the light heavyweight division, ranked #1 in the WBO, #2 in the WBA, #5 in the WBC, and #3 in the IBF. In truth, however, he probably deserves to be positioned from #15 to 20 instead of in the top #5. Calzaghe, 36, is ranked # 1 in the WBC, and has beaten Mikkel Kessler and Bernard Hopkins in back to back fights going into Saturday’s fight with Jones.

With those two victories behind him, it’s naturally a big let down for fans to have to pay to watch Calzaghe fights someone that is considered to be a much lower quality fighter than them. That’s not to say that Kessler or Hopkins were better than Jones in his prime, because they clearly are not, but they’re fighting at the top of the game, whereas Jones appears to have slipped substantially from that level in recent years.

Blame it on his weight loss after reducing down from heavyweight in 2003, or maybe just the years that have gone by. Whatever the case, Jones isn’t the same fighter he once was, and the fight with Calzaghe seems more of a farce than an actual competitive fight worth paying to watch.

For most fans, however, they’re more than willing to shell out the cash to see Calzaghe in his last fight against Jones, who they’ve been hoping that he would face for years. It’s unfortunate that it had to wait until Jones was near forty, because the fight would have been huge a decade ago.

I suppose fans should be happy just to witness the fight, regardless of Jones’ faded star status. He may have enough left of his once great skills to surprise Calzaghe with a big left hook to take him out. That seems unlikely, but there’s always a chance.