By Mark Vester

In a recent interview with BoxingScene.com's Bill Emes, former four-division champion Roy Jones Jr. said that he issued a warning to promoter Lou DiBella to have then middleweight champion Jermain Taylor stay away from fighting his mandatory, Kelly Pavlik. Jones says that he knew Taylor was going to be knocked out by Pavlik.

"I saw it coming. I was telling Lou DiBella. The bad part about it, Jermain Taylor and I had a date for September. HBO gave him a pay-per-view (date) to fight me. They agreed to this a long time before I fought Anthony Hanshaw," Jones said. "They said 'naw, we're going to fight Kelly Pavlik first'. I said 'you are making a mistake Lou, he (Taylor) almost lost his last six fights.' 

Jones said that Taylor began to exhibit serious problems as a fighter back in May, when he was unable to knock out IBF junior middleweight champion Cory Spinks. He feels that Taylor still has questions that need answers, centering those questions with Taylor's level as a fighter.

"Any time that you are the middleweight champion of the world and Zab Judah can stop Cory Spinks and you can't....and Zab Judah was a junior welterweight moving up to welterweight, and you are the middleweight champion and you can't stop Cory Spinks. C'mon dude, there is something wrong there," Jones said. "Either you are not getting up to the level of your competition, but really that ain't no up."

"But really you are not fighting to where you are supposed to be, you are not reaching your standards or you are not there. That's a big gap and a question that needs to be answered. I said 'put Roy Jones and we'll find out what's going on. Either he will step up and play the game right or he will go to sleep.' But, at least it's a somebody that's going to beat him and not a somebody like Kelly Pavlik who nobody really knows."

According to Jones, he feels that his last opponent, Anthony Hanshaw, would give Pavlik all he could handle. He predicts an entertaining battle that could rival Pavlik's seven-round war with Taylor.

"You take Anthony Hanshaw right now and he will give Kelly Pavlik all he wants. Honestly speaking, that is a hell of a fight and probably just as good or better than him and Jermain Taylor because that's the style of fighting they fight. Jermain Taylor was trying to step away from that group of people. He didn't and they made a mistake.

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