Boxing (RJ) Flashback...September 1995...

You never know what the future holds for some people. It doesn't matter where you start, I guess, it matters where you end up. Flashback, September 30th of 1995: I was down in Pensacola for Roy's 168 pound title defense against Tony "The Postman'" Thornton and afterwards they had a big post fight party at the mansion downtown Lil' Roy had bought and turned into his gym. There were a lot of people there. Men, woman and children. Fans, boxers, promoters. Everyone. They had food and music. It was very warm out that night and people were all over the place, inside and out. When I was leaving for the night I noticed an amateur kid out in the parking lot that I knew and had become friendly with from seeing him at different amateur tournaments that I attended with kids I train. We talked out in the street while Roy Jones was only a few feet away in the parking lot enjoying his time as the undefeated, unchallenged super middleweight world champion. This amateur was telling me how he was in Pensacola talking to Roy and his promotional outfit, Square Ring, about maybe signing with them after he went pro one day. Ultimately the Pensacola team, as several others did, decided against signing him for a variety of reasons but one major one was his advanced age. He was already 26 years old at the time and still had at least another year left in his amateur career. Meaning, theoretically, that once he turned pro and made his way up the ranks he would very likely already be in his thirties by that point. Big risk to take with a fighter when there are so many solid twenty two years olds looking to climb the same ladder. So based on his dealings with Roy's promotional group down in Florida back in 1995 it would appear that the timing just wasn't on his side. The kid stayed with it, though. His name was Antonio Tarver.