Roy Jones Vs. Daruisz M.

[WhoreUs]

It was before that and he didn't really want to fight Tarver, public pressure made him fight Tarver. He deserves a lot of respect for what he did though.

tarver barely had any fights. roy doesn't get credit for fighting 27-0 guys and he'll get credit for a 15 or 16-0 guy?

besides if tarver wanted an earlier fight he should have won his title eliminator. he lost and roy fought the guy that did win.

[Silencers]

tarver barely had any fights. roy doesn't get credit for fighting 27-0 guys and he'll get credit for a 15 or 16-0 guy?

besides if tarver wanted an earlier fight he should have won his title eliminator. he lost and roy fought the guy that did win.

He probably would have gotten more credit for beating Tarver at that point than beating guys like Richard Frazier.

It's Tarver's own fault that he lost and he admits that but Tarver wouldn't have been put into that position had Jones and his camp not protested his ranking as Jones' mandatory in one of the sanctioning bodies. Can't remember which one.

[IMDAZED]

Jones sending that letter to the IBF was, to me, an indicator that he knew Tarver was trouble IMO. It's one of the reasons why I tabbed Tarver to beat him in the first fight and the rematch.

But to Roy's credit, he did live up to his word. He believed Tarver and Harding should have a box-off and when Harding beat Tarver up, he fought him right after

[-Antonio-]

It was officially a DQ, not a draw. That article you quoted has some mistakes. The fight is in our videos section, download and watch it.

Hitting after the break when your opponent is not expecting it, or after the end of a fight, is de****able and very poor sportsmanship.

Remember what James Butler did to his opponent, live on ESPN?

De****able? Wtf?

His reaction is de****able. And you can tell that punch was partly accidental.

[joseph5620]

De****able? Wtf?

His reaction is de****able. And you can tell that punch was partly accidental.

Add to that the regferee had no reason to break them other than the fact that DM since getting ppunded with uppercuts. DM was very protected in his hometown(read up on his fights with Richard Hall)which shines even more light on why Roy Jones would not fight him there.

[crold1]

The fact is, Roy-DM made the most sense $-wise in Germany. Roy didn't want to travel...but DM's people never made a serious offer to try to make it happen. Roy and DM were happily co-existing making bank without fighting each other. Roy is no more guilty of not making that fight than Sanchez-Pedroza, Yuh-Chang, or any other number of great fights that didn't happen because you were dealing with sub-mega money guys making a solid living without each other.

[DonFlamenco]

this should not even be up for debate.

[crold1]

It's really not; the debate is between folks who see Roy easy and those who see Roy winning a good fight with a narrow chance for DM based on his big right and excellent jab.

[ACHlLLES]

Daruisz M was not better then a young Calzaghe even though I don't think younger Calzaghe was in his prime. I think Calzaghe was a harder hitter when he was younger but much more talented later in his career...

Topics like this get me questioning fans when they think Dariusz could beat a prime Roy but not Calzaghe... Hilarious topic. Calzaghe wouldn't even need to be in his prime to beat Dariusz, and neither would Roy.

[mECHsLAVE]

In boxing negotiations, everyone has an ego. For a guy like Jones, who was the best fighter in the world, why should he go to Germany and open the door to become a victim of a Sven Ottke decision?

There was controversy afoot in the two Richard Hall fights, when Hall was leading on the cards and the ref stopped the fights citing some insignificant swelling.

If Michaelzcewski was serious, he would have been on a plane to New York and fought him in the Garden.

Why would Roy go to Germany? Because that's where the champ was. Dariusz was the champ. Period. Before Roy was a LHW, Dariusz had unified all existing LHW titles, except the WBC's, whose I believe was vacant at the time. Roy basically won paper titles at LHW. Dariusz had defended his LHW title several times. Maske had defended his many times. Hill had defended his many times. There were three legit titlists at LHW. Hill beat Maske. Dariusz beat Hill, in a decisive decision. The end. You have a champion. Ring belts were different back then, but as the head of Ring Magazine said in an interview, Dariusz would've been the Ring champ when he beat Hill, if their current system was in place. It's a no-brainer. There was a champion in the division, Roy never fought him. He d****d paper belts all over himself, but he never fought Dariusz.

Would Roy have won? Probably, yes. But in boxing, "probably yes" is a big if. And there was no fighter at the time who posed a bigger risk to Roy. Roy said he'd fight him, and simply priced himself out. Dariusz was making huge bank in Germany, and Roy had a cush HBO deal that allowed him to fight the mandatories on his paper belts and make bank. So he did. He absolutely deserves criticism for it, and got a lot of it at the time. HBO deserves criticism too. They should've simply not signed him to those long fight deals, and told him "Hey, we aren't buying any more of your fights, or paying rebroadcast fees for them, until you actually become champion by fighting and beating the champion."

You don't become champion in any division by looking good by beating bums, by beating other fighters "worse than" or "easier than" the champ. That's not boxing my little compadres. Sorry.

There was controversy over the first Hall fight, but there was a huge swelling. I honestly don't remember who was ahead on the cards, but boxrec says Michalczewski was. Either way, there was a rematch, where both fighters got pretty busted up, and Hall got hurt late and couldn't recover. If you watch the end of the fight, Hall is a limp dishrag that couldn't even tie Dariusz up. Rudy Battle warned Hall to fight back, he didn't, and he had taken like 8 solid shots after getting hurt, so Rudy stopped it.

It should be noted that when Americans went to Germany to fight Dariusz, there was always an American referee, and at least 2 non-german judges. For instance, Joe Cortez stopped the Griffin fight after Dariusz clocked him with an overhand right and Griffin took punishment against the ropes. No argument from Griffin. There were no "Ottke" situations with Dariusz, who wasn't German and didn't even speak German well. It's something close to the draw someone like Castillo or Chavez was in Vegas, while not speaking English or being US citizens.

Anyway, as for how a fight with Roy would've gone, Dariusz came forward and had a wicked jab. Now, he took lots of punishment and was there to be hit, and most people feel that's why Jones would've won. But there's also that pressure fighting toughness he had, to go with an extensive amateur background, which made him tough (obviously) to beat. You could hit him easily, but he hit you when you did. For those that haven't seen Dariusz fight, it's comparable to Glen Johnson in his best performances.

That fighting style, and the long amateur career shortened his career. But for a good five years, he was there, in his prime, fighting in Germany while Roy, who was crowned with paper titles unjustly stripped from Dariusz, fought in the US. If the nationalities were reveresed, everyone's opinions of who the onus was on to make the fight would reverse, too.

That's my two cents on the subject. I, unlike most commenting in this thread, have been a fan of Roy's since I watched the gold medal fight live, and was an active fan throughout the whole Dariusz controversy. I watched Costas grill Roy about fighting him. I watched Merchant rant on it many times, Lampley bring it up delicately in almost every Roy fight for 2 years straight. I saw the ad Dariusz took out in Boxing Digest begging Roy to fight him. I saw Dariusz sitting ringside at one of Roy's early LHW fights, trying to make the fight happen. I saw and heard a lot more from Dariusz, who was the true champion at 175 through Roy's LHW campaign, than I did from Roy. Roy was most vocal when he knew what HBO would pay for the fight, he then demanded twice that much, knowing they couldn't pay it. Roy was making 2-3 million per defense, and wanted 10 million for a Michalczewski fight, a price he knew Dariusz couldn't bring in the US. That money could only be made in Germany, where Roy didn't want to go. That's fine. That was Roy's choice, but as a fair-minded Roy fan, I believe he deserves criticism for that, regardless of who you think would've won that fight. We'll never know, because Roy never made a fight with the champion.