By Scott Gilfoid: #11 WBO cruiserweight contender Roy Jones Jr. (62-8, 45 KOs) is looking to get a title shot in the near future. Jones, 46, is hoping to get a fight against 35-year-old high level journeyman Ovill McKenzie (25-12, 13 KOs) if he defeats IBF cruiserweight champion Victor Ramirez (22-2, 17 KOs) in his gift title shot this Friday, on October 2nd at the Villa La Ñata Sporting Club, Benavídez, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Jones Jr. has won his last eight fights since being stopped in the 10th round by Denis Lebedev in their fight in May 2011 in Moscow, Russia. Jones specifically wants McKenzie for a title shot if he beats Ramirez.
It’s unclear if McKenzie has told Jones that he’ll give him a title shot if he beats Ramirez or what. For Jones to be so eager to fight McKenzie and not Ramirez, it kind of suggests that he may have been told that he can fight the aging 35-year-old McKenzie if he wins against Ramirez. But then again it could be that Jones realizes that the heavy-handed Ramirez would be a really bad match-up for him because he’s got good power and a steel chin.
Whatever the case, I can’t see McKenzie beating Ramirez, so it’s kind of irrelevant. Jones’ backup plan is to fight the 35-year-old former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (39-7, 31 KOs) if McKenzie loses to Ramirez, which would seem to be the case. However, Maccarinelli will need to win his scheduled eight round fight on October 10th at the Newport Centre in Newport, Wales.
Maccarinelli still doesn’t have an opponent yet, but if someone halfway decent is selected for him, then I could see him losing. Maccarinelli is very, very vulnerable against anyone with decent punching power. I guess that’s why Jones wants to fight him.
“McKenzie is a very strong puncher, a very strong guy,” Jones said via skysports.com. “If it doesn’t work out, then we will go with Enzo if we have to. Enzo is a good guy too, I’ve nothing against Enzo. I will fight either one of them, I don’t really care. I just want to fight for a cruiserweight title.”
I fail to see what a fight against Maccarinelli will do for Jones in terms of furthering his goal to try and become a cruiserweight world champion. As far as I can tell, Maccarinelli isn’t ranked in the top 15 at cruiserweight, so it’s kind of meaningless for Jones to be fighting him.
If Jones is so interested in fighting for a world title then he needs to fight the likes of Rakhim Chakhkiev, Dmitry Kudryashov or Olesandr Usyk. They are all highly ranked Easter European cruiserweight contenders, and a win over one of them would shoot Jones to the top of the cruiserweight rankings.
Beating a non-ranked aging fighter like Maccarinelli, who was recently stopped by WBA “regular” light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer in a 5th round stoppage in April of 2014 would seem like a total waste of time for Jones. If he doesn’t have the talent to beat the likes of Usyk, Chakhkiev or Kudryashov, then it’s safe to say that he won’t be good enough to beat any of the cruiserweight champions like Ramirez, Krzystof Glowaki, Lebedev or Grigory Drozd.
It seems to me that Jones is trying to take the back door approach to getting a world title shot by looking for the path of least resistance instead of looking to face the best in the cruiserweight division. I mean, if you throw McKenzie in the ring with the likes of the above mentioned cruiserweights, I think bad things would happen to McKenzie. I’m just saying.
If you put McKenzie in the ring with Usyk, Chakhkiev or Kudryashov, I see it ending unhappily for McKenzie with him being scooped off the canvas with a giant spatula and carted away after three of four rounds and that’s me being kind. It might in the 1st round.
If I were Jones, I would put the idea of McKenzie beating Ramirez completely out of my head, and I’d focus on going in a different direction. I wouldn’t waste my time fighting an old 2nd tier fighter like Maccarinelli because beating the stuffing out of him wouldn’t further my goals because he has no ranking. This might be news to Jones but I’ll say it anyway. To get ranked high in a hurry, you need to beat a top five contender in whatever division you’re fighting in. You don’t pick out a 2nd tier fighter like Maccarinelli and hope that a win over him will drive you to the top. Jones needs to fight Usyk, Chakhkiev or Kudryashov, and if he can’t beat any of them, which is obviously going to be the case, then he needs to retire from boxing unless he’s fine with just being fringe contender or 2nd tier guy.
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