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 Former world middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight champ Roy Jones, Jr., takes a solid shot from Welshman Joe Calzaghe, the current light-heavyweight champ, in Saturday night's blistering battle between two certain inductees into boxing's Hall of Fame. |
Two great champs settle their places in Valhalla
of TheColumnists.com
If you simply read the fight result in agate type--Joe Calzaghe defeated Roy Jones, Jr., by decision in their 12-round bout for Calzaghe's world light heavyweight title--you just won't have a clue why this will be remembered as a legendary night at the Mt. Olympus of professional fisticuffs, New York's Madison Square Garden.
The matchup wasn't a great betting fight. Jones, who's nearly 40, hadn't seemed at his best for quite a few years while, during the same period of time, 36-year-old Calzaghe had been mowing down all the top contenders and was now looking for bigger paydays by demolishing the few living ring legends still able to draw a big crowd. He was a solid favorite to beat Jones, even though Jones had only lost four fights and won 52 in a remarkable pro career.
For the first six rounds of their long-awaited showdown, it was a stunning action fight and it began with Jones' quick power-punch that staggered Calzaghe in the first round and put him on the canvas.
This was exactly what the few Jones advocates among the press fight writers had predicted might happen. Everybody knows Calzaghe walks right up to his opponents and starts hammering them. No running, no dodging, no fancy dips and doodles. He just overwhelms them and most of them look as if they're drowning in a sea of leather.
That has always been the sort of dream opponent for Jones, a quick-handed counterpuncher with dynamite power in either hand. You walk up to Roy Jones like that and you'd better have your last will and testament tucked into the back pocket of your trunks.
But Calzaghe got up off the floor after that knockdown and walked right back into Jones' firing range. The look on Jones' face was like he was thinking, "Oh, s--t! Do I need a f--kin' sledge hammer to keep this guy down?" It was, in a word, discouraging.
Jones was in exceptional condition, His jab was working and he was doing everything right. He was still incredibly fast for an old man of the ring. But Calzaghe, believe it or not, was faster. It's laughable that so many American boxing writers once dismissed Calzaghe as a typical Brit with a record fattened up on anemic turkeys from the Central Casting office for European tomato cans. They kept saying, "Wait until he has to fight a legitimate American contender."
Well, nobody writes anything like that anymore. Calzaghe has no peer in the boxing world today except perhaps Filipino slugger Manny Pacquiao. The Welshman is a human buzzsaw. He walked up to Jones at least a couple of hundred times Saturday night and sawed his way right through Jones' shielding gloves and into his battered face. He threw four, five, six punches at a time, so fast they looked like the same battering ram, zoning in on poor Jones.
And if he stepped back, it was only to whack Jones in the ribcage, the belly and the kidneys as if to say, "Oh, I almost forgot to give you this, too!" Jones may not be able to eat for a week and everytime he takes a leak he'll thinking he's peeing pure zinfandel.
So, after Jones began to wilt in the second half of the fight, the drama shifted away from who was going to win it to another level of interest altogether: Was Jones going to go out on his shield or find a way to end the mayhem without suffering permanent damage. He did neither. Jones, a fighter I've often criticized for not putting enough effort into his usually easy fights, made a valiant stand, trying hard to somehow catch Calzaghe just one more time. He ended what should be his last fight still standing, still trying.
I scored the bout for Calzaghe 118-109. I gave Jones only the first round, but by two points because of the knockdown. All three judges scored it exactly the same.
The HBO broadcast team said Calzaghe had landed more punches on Jones than any other fighter in Jones' long career. (That's true--at least for those fights in which the computerized Compubox system made official tallies of the punches.) Jones' left eye was badly swollen and closed from a Calzaghe punch. Jones had never suffered a severe cut nor boxed with only one eye.
Jones was a silver medal winner in the Olympic Games--he lost a controversial decision to a South Korean boxer that denied him gold--and first won the middleweight crown. Calzaghe is a natural super-middleweight (168 pounds), but has put on weight to challenge--and defeat--legends like Bernard Hopkins and Jones. On Saturday night, both weighed in at 174 1/2 pounds, fighting for Calzaghe's unofficial world light heavweight (175 pounds) crown, the one maintained by The Ring magazine.
Though I've not been a big fan of Jones, mostly because I think he only put out enough effort to beat his mostly mediocre foes in the light-heavyweight division, I've given him credit for courage in putting together a comeback after being knocked out twice and losing his world crown. He also had to take off an awful lot of weight after giving up the world heavyweight title he won from John Ruiz and coming back down to light-heavyweight.
Saturday night Jones fought as bravely and as determinedly as I've ever seen him fight. He refused to give up, even though he was soaked in his own blood for the first time in his career. As for Calzaghe, he is by far the most exciting fighter in the world and surely could go on for some years more.
But it's now very likely that both Calzaghe and Jones will decide upon retirement after this classic showdown. If he retires now, Calzaghe will be one of the very few great fighters to have retired undefeated after taking on all the toughest men in their division. Jones may decide to take one more bout to end his career with a win, but he certainly doesn't need to paste some stiff to regain his dignity. He kept his dignity Saturday night by fighting like a valiant warrior.
I also agree with HBO's Jim Lampley that Calzaghe should have shown more respect for Jones in the second half of the bout after it was clear Jones couldn't possibly win without a very unlikely knockout. Instead, the Welshman fooled around, made faces at Jones, taunted him and clowned way too much. He made up for it some by praising Jones' courage during the post-fight interview, but I was turned off by his foolishness at a time when the only purpose it served was to humiliate a great champion in what may be his final hour in the public spotlight.
If both men had their last showing Saturday night, Jones will end his career with a fine record of 52 wins, five losses and 38 victories by knockout. And he held every meaningful title from middleweight to heavyweight. Calzaghe's record would be 46 victories and no defeats with 32 knockouts. He may be the best, pound for pound, in all boxing right now and the bows he's still taking are certainly well-earned.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The photo is courtesy of HBO Boxing. This column first posted Nov. 10, 2008.
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