Should Roy Jones Jr. Retire?

By Boxing News - 11/11/2008 - Comments

Image: Should Roy Jones Jr. Retire?By Dan Ambrose: Nearing 40 years of age, Roy Jones Jr. was shown up badly by Joe Calzaghe last Saturday night, beaten every which way but Sunday, bloodied and beaten badly in a one-sided fight that reminded of watching the great Joe Louis being pounded into oblivion by the young Rocky Marciano. In this case, Calzaghe didn’t have the power – or possibly the inclination – to finish off the former eight-time champion.

However, Calzaghe still did Jones no favors, for he kept him in the fight for the full 12 rounds, embarrassing Jones with his speed, accuracy and high volume work rate and ultimately making a bloody mess of Jones’ face while at the same time boxing circles around the former champion. With his 40th birthday fast approaching in two months, one suspects that Jones won’t be getting any better, and wouldn’t stand a chance against other top light heavyweights like Chad Dawson, much less in a rematch with Calzaghe.

At this point, Jones’ options are rather limited. That is, if he’s concerned at all about winning the fights and not taking another beating like he did last Saturday night against Calzaghe. First of all, it’s unclear why he’d want to continue fighting at this point. After all, he’s one countless belts, including a heavyweight title, while making millions of dollars in the ring.

He doesn’t need money, and he’s not likely to do well if put in with a title holder, no matter who he is. Why then should be continue? The obvious answer is ego. Jones likes the applause from fans, and probably doesn’t want to give it up after all these years in the sport.

If Jones does continue fighting, he either needs to focus on going after older fighters like De La Hoya or possibly taking a page out of Oscar’s book and fighting someone three weight classes below him. In that case, someone like Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, John Duddy or Andre Berto.

For Jones to have a good chance, the fight would have to take place near the 175 pound weight limit, because at his age, he’d be too old to fight well if he were to have to strip off any kind significant amount of weight. In terms of competition, Jones would do well if he could get a match against Cotto, Mosley or De La Hoya.

Obviously, De La Hoya would be the best case scenario, but it would be highly unlikely, because Oscar prefers to fight opponents smaller than him nowadays rather than larger, and wouldn’t likely want to face a bigger Jones, even a faded one.

Cotto would be a good opponent, because he’s not very big and if he were forced to put on weight, he’d probably be sluggish, slow and much easily hittable for Jones. Cotto doesn’t have half the work rate of Calzaghe, which would give Jones at least a workable chance at beating him.

A fight against Mosley is much less interesting, due to Mosley’s age and because of the fact that he’s about to face Antonio Margarito in January and will probably take a beating in that fight.



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