By Eric Thomas: In an interview with Roy Jones Jr. (52-5, 38 KOs) at BoxingTalk’s website, Jones, 39, said that if he can’t land a rematch with Joe Calzaghe, then Roy will be moving up to the heavyweight division. Jones also said that “Calzaghe’s people” are interested in a rematch with him, and that he’s waiting for the word from them, which he should be getting after the Christmas holiday.
Jones is reportedly eager for a rematch with Calzaghe, presumably to try and avenge his lopsided 12-round unanimous decision loss to the Welsh fighter on November 8th at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Though why Calzaghe would be interested in another fight with Jones, given the one-sided nature of the first fight, is beyond me.
I suppose its good way to pad his wallet before he gets out of the sport with the least amount of risk, but if he chooses to fight Jones again at this point, it would surely open Calzaghe up for tons of criticism from fans that will see him looking for money at the expense of quality fights.
Fans are interested in Calzaghe facing unbeaten Chad Dawson, the best fighter in the light heavyweight division, a rematch with Bernard Hopkins or Mikkel Kessler, or fights with Lucian Bute, Carl Froch or Jean Pascal. Another fight with Jones would probably be more than anyone could stand right about now, and it would doubtful that the cable networks would want to see another farce like this.
By fighting Jones again, it would give the perception to many fans that Calzaghe is perhaps afraid of Dawson and Froch, and is looking for non-risky fights rather than real challenges. It hasn’t helped Calzaghe’s case that he has few real quality opponents on his resume, with only a small handful of good opponents occurring in the past two years of his career.
He may be as good as some people say he is, but without having faced many quality opponents during his career, it’s hard to see Calzaghe as a special fighter. One would hope that he’d be bigger than this and would avoid a rematch with Jones like the plague. If Calzaghe does plan on continuing his career, he needs to seek Dawson or Froch, otherwise hang them up.
Jones hopefully isn’t serious about moving back up to heavyweight, where he previously won the WBA heavyweight title in 2003 with a 12-round decision over John Ruiz. That was quite an accomplishment, but Jones is now five years older, much slower and not capable of throwing a lot of punches like he used to.
Beyond that, the heavyweight champions now, the Klitschko brothers and Nikolay Valuev, would seem to be much too big for Jones to beat. Fighting any of them would probably amount to a severe beating for Jones, likely ending in an early knockout. He might give Valuev some problems, but then again, by the time that Jones gets around to fighting Valuev, he probably won’t be the heavyweight champion any longer.
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