By Aaron Klein: Not much has been said of what Roy Jones Jr. (52-4, 38 KOs) will do if he’s soundly beaten by Joe Calzaghe on Saturday night. Instead of people looking at what will happen to Jones, 39, an all time great, most people are focusing on how badly Calzaghe will beat the old warrior. It’s unfortunate, really, that the fight needs to take place at since Jones is far past his prime and almost certainly going to be losing badly on Saturday night.
And while Jones may actually make it an interesting fight for the first half of the bout, he’ll no doubt fade in the end and lose the fight by a rather one-sided defeat. No one wants to see Jones take a beat, least of all himself, but a beating is probably what he’s going to be taking in this fight. However, unless he makes a good showing in this fight, his marketability will take a huge hit afterwards. He’ll still remain popular with boxing fans, but it’s doubtful that he’ll be in the running for any other huge mega fights in the near future, such as a bout against Bernard Hopkins.
In truth, this may be the end of the line for Jones in terms of big pay days should he get trounced by Calzaghe. If Jones loses badly to Calzaghe, I doubt that Hopkins would want to waste his time fighting him again, even though he’s shown in the past a huge interest in wanting to avenge his 1993 defeat to him. Minus the Calzaghe fight, it would have been a great bout if Jones had elected to face Hopkins instead.
With both fighters in or near forty, the fight would have had much more meaning than watching a still in his prime Calzaghe facing a near shot Jones. Hopkins, of course, would destroy Jones given the fact that Bernard is still fighting near the top of his game, but the fight would still be intriguing to watch. Beyond that, there are only Chad Dawson, Zsolt Erdei, Lucian Bute, Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson, Clinton Woods or Mikkel Kessler as potential opponents.
Woods isn’t interesting because of how awful he looked in losing to Tarver in April. Johnson, 39, would be a good fight, but it’s not a bout that would draw in many boxing fans despite the fact that he stopped Jones in the 9th round in 2004.
That would be as tough a fight for Jones to win today than it was back in 2004, and it’s doubtful that Jones would be up for a dangerous fight like that. To be sure, if his legs were eight years younger, he’d make Johnson look silly, beating without getting hardly a scratch. The problem is, Jones is now almost incapable of fighting at the center of the ring for more than a few moments.
He now spends most of the time on the ropes, resting his legs and trying to counter punch. Johnson does really well against those types of fighters and would make short work of Jones again. A fight with Dawson would be disastrous for Jones. Dawson is probably the best light heavyweight on the planet, bar none, and he’d have far too much speed, power and movement for the 39 year-old Jones to handle.
Jones will never want to a fight as dangerous as this, especially because it won’t be a big money fight due to Dawson still being unknown to many minor fans of the sport. As for Tarver, he’s already fought three times and proven that he’s the better fighter in all of them. Frankly, I can’t see Jones doing any better than losing by a lopsided decision like in his last fight with Tarver.
Jones’ legs aren’t there, his speed isn’t good enough, and his size is too small for Tarver. Because of that, I don’t see Jones ever wanting to step in the ring with him again in this lifetime. Bute, Kessler and Erdei would make Jones look like an old dog, beating him with jabs and movement and showing how shot he is. Jones would probably do okay against Erdei, who probably the weakest of the light heavyweight champions, but he’d still lose to him none the less.
With Kessler, well, let’s just say that he would turn Jones into a walking punching bag, and riddle him with shots, eventually stopping him in what would probably be a career-ending defeat for Jones. For Jones, it seems, his only real option – if he doesn’t want to lose badly – is to fight someone old and shot that he can beat.
There’s little interest in him fighting Trinidad again, because he already spanked him in January. Oscar De La Hoya would be a great opponent, except that De La Hoya will probably be looking at a fight against Ricky Hatton in the near future after Oscar faces Manny Pacquiao in December.
James Toney would be a great opponent but for that to happen, Toney would have to take off at least 50 pounds to make the light heavyweight limit. I don’t see that happening, and even if he did, Toney would possibly be so weakened that he might be too ill to fight.
In the end, probably the best option for Jones would be for him to simply retire from the sport. I think he’s reached the end of the line, and probably did four years ago, and should consider getting out of the sport.
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