By Dave Lahr: 40-year-old Roy Jones Jr. (52-5, 38 KOs) is looking to get back on the winning track this Saturday night against former super middleweight contender Omar Sheika (27-8, 18 KOs) in a 12-round bout at the Civic Center, in Pensacola, Florida. Jones, ranked an incredible #5 in the WBA and WBO light heavyweight division rankings, despite having lost four out of his last seven fights against credible opponents.
It suggests that either the ranking system is way off in their estimation of Jones’ fading talent or he’s being rewarded with high rankings because of his name and his past accomplishments.
The light heavyweight division, like the cruiserweight, super middleweight and middleweight divisions, are short of talent, but I can’t imagine they’re so short that they would have Jones ranked so highly.
Jones has picked a beatable opponent in 32-year-old Sheika, who’s only fought twice in the past four years. At one time in his career, from 1999 to 2001, Sheika was a good fighter, beating the likes of Kevin Pompey, Stephane Ouellet, Simon Brown and Glen Johnson during that stretch.
However, from 2002 until he stepped away from boxing in 2005, Sheika ran out of luck with his career, losing to Scott Pemberton (twice), Eric Lucas, Thomas Tate, Jeff Lacy and Markus Beyer. Those losses were all years ago, so I can’t imagine that he’s improved any since then, especially with being so inactive during the past four years.
This is precisely why he’s been chosen as Jones’ opponent. Roy is coming off a one-sided 12-round decision loss to Joe Calzage in November, a fight in which Jones was dominated in every round but the 1st, bloodied, battered and outclassed. Right now, he needs a win above all, even it’s a against a rusty fighter like Sheika.
In facing Sheika, Jones gets a fighter with a name but without the risk involved with facing a fighter in their prime. Yet, there’s still questions whether Jones is up to the task of beating Sheika. Roy hasn’t looked good for a number of years dating back to his loss to 2nd round stoppage loss to Antonio Tarver in May 2004.
With losses to Glen Johnson (9th round TKO) and Tarver, Jones essentially stepped away from facing top level fighters until his recent loss to Calzaghe last year. At 40, many people wonder how much longer Jones will persist with his career, and many are hoping that he’ll hang up his gloves soon rather than continuing to fight, look bad, and get beaten.
Marco Huck vs. Firat Arslan on May 9th
EBU (European) cruiserweight champion Marco Huck (24-1, 19 KOs) will be defending his title on May 9th against former WBA cruiserweight champion Firat Arslan (29-4-1, 18 KOs) at the Jako-Arena, Bamberg, in Bayern, Germany. Huck, 24, ranked #4 in the IBF and WBC, is taking on 38-year-old Arslan, who was defeated by Guillermo Jones in a 10th round stoppage in September 2008, losing his WBA title in the process.
Huck has so far failed to live up to expectations since turning pro five years ago in 2004, building up an impressive record against lower level fighters spoon fed to him in Germany where he now lives, and then defeated badly by Steve Cunningham in a 12th round stoppage in 2007 when Huck attempted to step it up and challenge for the IBF cruiserweight title. Since that time, Huck has returned to fighting C-level fighters and has been working on improving his amateurish fighting style.
Arslan, a fighter with a lot of muscles but not much power, defeated Valery Brudov and Virgil Hill in back to back 12-round decision victories in 2007 in Germany, both of them controversial. It appeared that Arslan lost both, however. The win over Hill gave Arslan the WBA title, which Arslan would successfully defend one time before losing it to Guillermo Jones in 2008.
Comments are closed.