By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like 46-year-old Roy Jones Jr. (62-8, 45 KOs) will be retiring after his December 12th fight against former WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (40-7, 32 KOs.
According to Fight News, Jones Jr. says he’ll be retiring after his December 12th fight against the 35-year-old Maccarinelli in Russia. On Wednesday, it was initially said that the WBA “Super” cruiserweight title would be on the line, but apparently that’s not going to be the case for now.
It’s just going to be a regular fight with perhaps one of the lesser known titles up for grabs.
“The fight on December 12th will be the last in my career,” Jones Jr. said via fightnews.com. “Today, I woke up the first time as a Russian/American. I have a great opponent. I’m waiting for December 12 and I appreciate the support of the fans.”
Jones Jr. became a Russian citizen earlier this week on Monday, and he’s pretty excited about it. Jones Jr. can now live in both countries and travel among them freely without having to get visas and deal with the red tape involved with that. Jones Jr. is both a trainer and a promoter, and it makes sense for him to be able to travel to Russia to do his business there.
What is hard to understand is why in the world did Jones Jr pick Maccarinelli to fight instead of a top 15 ranked contender? If Jones Jr was really serious about wanting to fight for the vacant WBA “super” cruiserweight title, then why in the heck didn’t he make it easy on the World Boxing Association by selecting at least a top 5 guy like 1. Beibut Shumenov, 2. Yunier Dorticos, 3. Lateef Kayode, 4. Dmitry Kudryashov or 5. Mirko Larghetti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pttl06Ia7l8
I think the first four of those fighters would all beat Jones, but he’d definitely have a chance of beating Larghetti. I wouldn’t say it would be a good chance though, because Jones Jr looks totally shot in my estimation. But if he’d selected one of those fighters, I think the WBA would have given the green light to a fight between him and them for the WBA “super” cruiserweight title despite the fact that Jones Jr isn’t ranked at all by the WBA in their top 15 and is only ranked #11 by the WBO at this time.
The WBA would have taken major heat if they agreed to let Jones and the 2nd tier fighter Maccarinelli fight for their “super” cruiserweight title, because it would take the ‘super’ out of the title due to Maccarinelli and Jones Jr being seen by a lot of boxing fans as guys at the last chance saloon.
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