By Klaas Mabetlela: Roy Jones Jr placing in the upper echelon of fistic arena will always be a subject of huge debate. Everyone agrees that he is an all-time great who mesmerized us when he wanted to. This was the boxer who went years not just fights without losing a round. He also owns wins against all-time greats like Bernard Hopkins, Mike McCallum, Virgil Hill and Felix Trinidad. For all his accomplishments, there is a lingering feeling that he did not fully achieve what his talents truly represented.
Jones was destined to challenge the likes of Ali, Armstrong and Robinson at the very top of the game, but when all is done and dusted, Roy will be viewed as a disappointment in that regard. No one denies that Jones Jr was one if not the most talented boxer ever to grace the ring. He defied all laws of sweet-science and created his own while ruling the ring like a general marshal.
I think he was the victim of his success. He was so devastatingly successful at his craft that he became too big for his own good and made succession of decisions fitting of a journeyman. The fact that he is still fitting at 40 is one of them. Roy became complacent, started to take some fights not as seriously as he should have, did not hone his decision-making abilities and failed to improve his boxing business skills. He also convinced himself that he was a talented rap artist. To him, an establishment became a real enemy and he always needed to prove that he was his own man. His PPV record is nothing to write about for the boxer who ruled boxing for 15 years and was voted as the boxer of the decade for the 90’s. In hindsight, Roy could have learned from Oscar De La Hoya on how to play and deal with an establishment.
Jones career-defining fight against James Toney turned into a forgettable yawn due to Toney’s conditioning and ill-preparedness. Jones can’t be blamed for that but he did nothing to salvage the situation by calling for the toughest opponents available. Playing basketball and fighting the same day may sound like an attention grabbing ploy, but it does nothing for an image of the boxer who was already accused of cherry-picking. The fight against the then long-time undefeated fellow titlist Dariusz Michalczewski never materialized and Roy was heavily criticized for years. A rematch with Bernard Hopkins also never saw the light despite the fact that Hopkins became one of the best right under Jones radar. The 2 met early in their careers when they were relatively green and a rematch then seemed natural.
After winning the heavyweight against the weakest titlist available in John Ruiz, Roy called the best and biggest heavyweight champ (Lennox Lewis) out and nobody believed him. He proved his detractors right by opting to go down in weight instead of remaining at heavyweight. He allowed his ego to outshine his business sense by falling into Antonio Tarver’s personal attacks and agreed to fight him without giving himself time to properly and naturally come down in weight. The rest, as the saying goes is history.
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