By Jim Dower: Although former 8-time champion Roy Jones Jr. (54-5, 40 KO’s) was able to reach back for some of his old glory on Saturday night with a 10th stoppage victory over former International Boxing Federation (IBF) super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy (25-3, 17 KO’s) at the Coast Coliseum, in Biloxi, Mississippi, Jones still looked like a shot fighter in there. Let’s be honest here.
Jones was facing a hand-picked opponent in the 32-year-old Lacy, who hasn’t been the same fighter since being beaten by Joe Calzaghe in 2006 and then suffering an injury to his left shoulder later on in the same year in a fight against Vitali Tsypko.
Rather than taking on a top light heavyweight in the division, say Chad Dawson, Glen Johnson, Zsolt Erdei, Jurgen Brahmer, Gabriel Campillo, Beibut Shumenov, Adrian Diaconu, Hugo Garay, Jean Pascal, Tavoris Cloud, Antonio Tarver, Yusaf Mack or Vyachslav Uzelkov, Jones selected the shot looking Lacy to fight. As such, it any real surprise that Jones was able to look good in beating him?
Come on, this was an opponent that was picked specifically so that the 40-year-old Jones could shine, just as Jones’ last opponent Omar Sheika was pulled out of retirement to come back and fight Jones. My hope is that Jones doesn’t kid himself about this victory because he didn’t look like the same fighter he as earlier in his career while he was in his prime.
Now lets get to last Saturday night’s fight. As many people predicted, Jones was unable to fight in the center of the ring because of his old, weary legs and needed to spend most of the fight laying up against the ropes the way that many fighters his age typically do.
Normally, this would be a remedy for Jones being knocked cold by Lacy. However, several things prevented Jones from being knocked out by Lacy. First of all, Jones was allowed to grab Lacy around the neck with both arms and pull his head forward throughout the fight. This kind of tactic is usually cause for the fighter to be warned and then penalized by the referee.
However, Jones was able to do this without any loss of points or even a warning. I found that pretty mind boggling because this was something that gave Jones a huge advantage while Lacy was in close. You could compare it to grabbing a fighters’ arm and holding it when they get in close, because it really put Lacy at a disadvantage. Also, Lacy never was a good inside fighter to begin with.
His age and deterioration haven’t improved his ability to fight on the inside. Jones, a good inside fighter, was able to capitalize on this by landing short three and five punch combinations, mostly left hooks. Jones did his usual clowning around, looking and talking to the crowd while fighting and throwing a lot of pot shots.
Jones hurt Lacy with shots in the 4th, 8th and 9th and 10 rounds, although never tried hard to follow up when he had Lacy hurt. My guess is that Jones was afraid to tire himself out and also wanted to ensure that he could make the fight go on as long as possible to showcase his fading skills.
In a way, this fight was like an exhibition match because Lacy wasn’t able to compete and was just taking shots from the 2nd round on. Lacy had his moments and was able to land some big shots in almost every round, thanks to Jones spending so much time laying against the ropes. But without his once powerful left hook working for him, Lacy had no real power to worry Jones with. By the 8th round, the fight had gotten way out of hand as Jones was hitting Lacy at will and had both of his eyes puffed up and the left eye cut.
“A lot of punch for punch action, because a lot of people think I can’t fight when they put pressure on me,” Jones said after the fight. “I look forward to going down under and taking Danny Green down under. I am the best hooker in the game. I have the best left hook in the business.”
A beat up looking Lacy had this to say after the bout: “I came in and fought my heart out. I left it all in the ring tonight. Roy Jones was the man tonight. Maybe down the road, we can do it again. I’m going to keep doing it.”
I got to feel sorry for Lacy, because he sounds like he’s a little delusional. There’s no way that Jones will fight Lacy again after this one-sided fight. I know Jones is looking for easy marks nowadays, but I don’t think he’s into beating up the same fighters twice. I was hoping that Lacy would announce his retirement after the fight but judging by his comments, it looks as if he’s going to continue to fight for a while longer.
As for Jones, he’s going after former IBF light heavyweight champion Danny Green in November for Green’s obscure IBO title. Green, 36, fought on Saturday night defeating Julio Cesar Dominguez in a 5th round stoppage. The fight against Green might be a decent match, but it’s unlikely going to excite the boxing fans much because Green is up there in age and hasn’t been active much in recent years.
But then again, Jones doesn’t appear to be interested in taking on any real dangerous threats like Johnson, Tarver or Dawson, so I’m not surprised that he’s chosen Green. After Jones beats Green, maybe he can lure Roberto Duran out of retirement.
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