When i first heard about this fight coming to fruition a few months ago, my first reaction was ‘why?’. Besides the money to be made there seemed to be no point, considering Roy Jones Jr (52-5 [38]) is now 39 years old therefore even older than he was when he suffered three back to back losses a couple of years ago, in which two came by knock out. Add to this that two of those losses were handed to him by Antonio Tarver, a fighter that was dominated by Bernard Hopkins, who as we all know Joe Calzaghe (46-0 [32]) has just defeated. But as the fight drew nearer I began to believe there is a chance for Roy to win. Firstly he had won his last three fights, granted against lesser opposition in Anthony Hanshaw, Prince Badi Ajamu and an over the hill Puerto Rican legend in Felix Trinidad, who had seen his best days at Welterweight. Secondly, Roy had now had time to readjust and feel comfortable at Light heavyweight again after the sudden jump back from his title winning debut at heavyweight that closely preceded his three losses, whereas Calzaghe had only had one previous fight at Light heavyweight in his last outing. Lastly, although it was fifteen years ago back in 1993, Roy did beat Hopkins (Calzaghe and Jones’ only common opponent) much more convincingly than Joe did, earning a unanimous points victory. Calzaghe received criticism when this fight was made for taking the easy option in an old name fighter rather than fight a young fresh hard hitting lion such as Kelly Pavlik. But after Hopkins’ thorough domination of Pavlik a couple of weeks before, it proved that Jones was more likely to be a much tougher test for Calzaghe’s ‘last’ fight. Still my head told me to stick with Calzaghe and not get caught up in all the hype, and the bookies did too, making Calzaghe a 3-1 favorite.
As the first round got underway there wasnt much of a feeling out process. Although these two men had been exchanging nothing more than pleasentries in the build up to this fight, it was obvious they wanted to get straight down to business. Pretty much as expected Calzaghe was doing most of the leading with Jones edging backwards looking for the counter. With less than a minute to go in the first round it came, as Calzaghe rushed in, a jab-right combination from Jones had him on the deck. The right hand was a looping punch thrown upwards from the waist that caught Calzaghe as he was leaning right onto it. Unfortunatly for Calzaghe it seemed to land more with the forearm than the glove. In the post fight interview Calzaghe said ‘I thought it was deja vu’ after also suffering a right hand counter knock down in the first round against Hopkins. The second round was much of the same with Jones just edging it for me with the cleaner punches.
The third round saw Jones go completely off his gameplan. It all started as Calzaghe was firing a combination to the body, Jones simply held onto the back of Calzaghes head allowing his man to land to the body while looking left and right at the crowd mockingly. This sign of disrespect frustrated Calzaghe as he too started to showboat by putting his face right in front of Jones’s with his hands down at his sides, in between throwing fast combinations. Jones then decided to try and prove Calzaghe couldn’t hurt him by marching forward with his guard high beckoning his opponent to come in whilst not throwing any punches and Calzaghe obliging by wailing away at him for the rest of the round. Jones ended the third round marked up around the eyes and forehead and probably wondering what had inspired him to do such a thing. I would imagine he was on a high from the first two rounds and it was a way of proving to Calzaghe that he is the best and he doesnt even have to take this fight seriously to win. The differnce between the Jones of old and the jones of new is that the old jones would have never took such a risk as he didnt need to proove he was the best because it was common knowledge he was the best.
Jones got back to business in the fourth round only for it to be too late. He had stopped clowning but he had also stopped punching. He spent most of the time on the ropes covering up as Calzaghe peppered him with combinations at will. It seems the previous rounds clowning had tired him more than anyone expected and from here on Jones never got back into the fight. Jones was so dormant Calzaghe was able to repeatedly put his face right in front of Jones’s gaurd with his hands at his sides as if he were peeping through a keyhole to look at Jones on the other side. Although I cant recall Calzaghe using this technique before it seemed to double up as a defensive manuvure as his head was too close to his man for Jones to get any power on the retaliating left hooks that occasionally landed. The left hook seemed to be the only answer to it as Jones’ guard was too high to have time to drop and throw an uppercut, dropping back and throwing a right hook would have also been too slow and he was far too close to get a straight punch off.
So it went on round after round. A one sided beating mixed with a display of showmanship administered by Calzaghe (not dissimilar to many of Jone’s performances when he ruled the pound for pound rankings) with Jones attemting the occasional one shot counter. It has to be said Jones was doing a great job of defending most of the punches, taking them on the arms and gloves much as he did in his first meeting with Tarver in 2003, where Jones won a controversial points decision. The controversy came mainly due to the sheer punch output of Tarver over Jones even though many did not land. In the sixth round Jones landed an awesome counter right uppercut off the ropes right through Calzaghes guard hitting him dead in the face. This was to be his last punch of any significance. The following round Calzaghe took advantage of Jones’s slowing reflexes when he caught him with his hands down; a chopping straight left which immediatly opened a nasty cut underneath the left eyebrow, giving Jones his first cut ever in over two decades of professional boxing.
In the eighth round Jones’s cut worsened to the point where he had his left eye firmly closed due to the downpour of blood entering into it.The left side of Jone’s face becoming a mask of blood. Now im not a doctor but Im pretty sure the general consensus in boxing is that when a fighter’s vision is effected the fight is to be stopped. As the ninth round began the ringside doctor and other officials temporarily stopped the fight to check the cut. It may not have been bleeding into the eye at that point because Jones’ cutman had just secured the bleeding but it was obvious that it would be about twenty seconds into the round as it did the round before. I beleive the fight should have been stopped at this point. Looking back in history Joe Frasier was pulled out against Muhamed Ali in their rubber match in 1975 and Chris Eubank against Carl Thompson in 1998 for being essentially one eyed fighters toward the end of a championship fight. The only difference here being that those two were due to the eye being swollen shut rather than bled into. But what about Lennox Lewis’ cuts stoppage of Vitali Klitschko at the end of the sixth round in 2003? why didnt the same rule apply here? Especially as Jones wasnt even winning the fight on the judges scorecards and Klitschko was. It seems that quite often in big events such as this the officials let the occasion get to them and feel it must go on regardless of the risk. As Paulie Malignaggi said in one of his recent interviews to promote his fight with Ricky Hatton, on the subject of the referee in his fight with Miguel Cotto ‘in these big events the referee is more of a spectator’, as Malignaggi refered to Cottos roughhouse tactics. Fortunately for Jones the cut was over his left eye which would have blinded him from most of the punches coming from Calzaghes right hand rather than the southpaw’s danger hand, the left. Nevertheless, this handicap forced Jones to throw even less punches than he was already and it is a credit to him that he was able to survive through to the end of the fight against such a formiddable opponent in Joe Calzaghe. Credit is also due to Enzo Calzaghe’s work ethic. In the interval between the 11th and 12th rounds he was as professional and determined as he had been between the first and second round even though the fight was well in the bag and some trainers might have been counting their chickens. In Jones’ corner his cut man did a poor job of securing the blood flow from the cut by being ill-prepared and not even managing to put vaseline on it after using the adreneline swab.
The officail judges scorecards all read 118-109 giving Calzaghe every round but the first which was a 10-8 round for Jones. Calaghe landed 344 of an overwhelming (but almost expected) 985 punches thrown to Jone’s 159 of 475 thrown throughout the fight, therefore hitting Jones more than he had been in any of his previous fights. So where does this fight place Calzaghe in relation to Jones when considering who was the best overall? Although the undefeated Calzaghe at 36 is only three years younger than Jones, he is a much fresher fighter. Jones went fifty fights undefeated (if you include his one loss on his record at the time a win, which it would have been if it wasn’t for a meaningless disqualification against Montell Griffin, which he avenged with a first round KO in the rematch). His defining fights against Hopkins at Middleweight, James Toney at Super Middle and John Ruiz at heavyweight were all unanimous wins in which he dominated from start to finish. Whereas Calzaghe’s defining fights were against three aging fighters in Eubank who lost his next two fights after fighting Calzaghe then retired, Hopkins, where he was knocked down in the first round and went on to win a disputed split decision, and Jones where again he was knocked down in the first round against a fighter that had only won three of his last six and didn’t manage to get the stoppage in any of those three wins over essentially B grade fighters. Calzaghe’s wins over Mikkel Kessler and Jeff Lacy cannot really be considered defining fights as both boxers are fairly unproven. Lacy’s most notible wins being Robin Reid and Peter Manfredo Jr and Kessler’s being Librado Andrade and an aging Markus Beyer. Calzaghe’s problem is that as Jones mentioned in an interview with Steve Bunce, Joe didn’t fight anyone of importance after defeating Eubank for the WBO title in 1997 until he fought Jeff Lacy in 2006, nine years later. Add to this that Jones was a four weight world champion spread over Middleweight to Heavyweight and recognised as number one pound for pound for a decade spanning from 1993 to 2003. Calzaghe dominated as WBO Super Middleweight Champion for a decade then adding the Undisputed Super Middleweight Championship to his resume before winning the recognised Light Heavyweight Championship of the world from Hopkins in his last outing. So i think the facts speak for themselves. As for Calzaghe’s current pound for pound status, I dont think this fight shed any more light on whether or not he or Manny Paquaio can claim the number one spot after Floyd Mayweather’s departure.
So what and where now for both fighters? Calzaghe hasnt sounded very convincing about retirement to me. I feel he is just starting to really enjoy himself and we can expect to see him back in the ring around the middle of next year. The question is, who is left to fight? a drop back down to supermiddle opens doors to tough but unexciting fights against an undefeated Carl Froch or an also undefeated Lucian Bute or even Jermain Taylor presuming he gets past Lacy. There is talk of a Jones rematch in Cardiff but i think cut or no cut the outcome would have been similar so theres no reason to pursue that course other than money. The fight that makes the most sense to me is to stay at Light heavyweight and fight Chad Dawson, he’s beaten quality opposition in Jones conquerers Glencoffe Johnson and Tarver. Hes young, fast, big and an undefeated champion to boot. That would make a great fight and I would be hard pressed to pick a winner. As for Jones, its clear he wants to fight on but after this performance in which he went out on his shield i think he should call it a day. Yes he has proved he’s still got something to give with this gutsy performance, but I dont feel he could beat any of the champions out there.
