Comments Thread For: Roy Jones Jnr admits Dmitry Bivol, Artur Beterbiev would have been tough opponents

[richardt]

Roy would have ducked them both, just like he did Michalczewski....and Nigel Benn....and Gerald McClellan.

Time for your schooling. Sit back and enjoy.

The fact that the fight didn't happen was a one-sided failure due entirely to Klaus Peter Kohl on many occasions.

Little known facts:

1. Murad Muhammad went to Germany to negotiate a fight in Germany between the two and DM's promoter and Universum head Klaus Peter Kohl wanted to pay DM double what they were offering Jones. Jones was being offered the usual 5Mill he normally makes, DM was to get either 8Mill or 10Mill.

2. DM was scheduled to fight Telesco on ESPN to build his brand in the US and Marty Mulcahy even showed the scheduling of the fight on his fight schedule on fight news dot com. DM pulled out because there was not enough money. This was during the time when Telesco was on a major roll on ESPN.

3. DM was offered a co main event on HBO but declined due to the money.

4. Klaus Peter Kohl was often unavailable for phone calls, this fact was documented through research by fight news dot com.

An article:

In 2001, Roy's advisor Brad Jacobs, met with Kerry Davis VP for HBO, and they tried desperately to make the fight. All they heard was crickets.

Peter Kohl who was DM's advisor was never available to sit down and discuss terms. He was also never available via phone, and he wouldn't even name a figure to get the ball rolling.

HBO also proposed the idea of a double header to hype the fight. A lot of U.S. fans had hardly seen DM fight, so HBO wanted to put both fighters on the same bill, to stir interest in a fight.

This was turned down by Kohl.

If DM and Kohl had been serious about a fight, they never would have turned down that opportunity.

Murad Muhammad gave an interview in 2003, and he said that DM was asking for a $6M purse, and he was making between $1-1.5M per fight in Germany.

According to a recent interview with Roy from June only a few years ago, HBO actually offered him DM $5M, and he turned it down.

All you have to do, is go and look at DM's resume, to see how serious he was about fighting the likes of Roy, Tarver and Harding etc. He never left his comfort zone in Germany. He was happy defending his WBO belt for decent money against C class, even fighters which had already been beaten easily by Roy.

If DM and Kohl had wanted Roy bad enough, they'd have agreed to the HBO double header, which was a great idea to market a superfight, perfect buildup like HBO often did back in the day, and then afterwards they'd have had a superfight.

Instead, team DM turned down the opportunity - to fight Hall, Harmon and De Grandis instead.

That's how bad they wanted Roy. Not.

They turned down $5M for Roy, to finally fight Joey De Grandis for $1-1.5M.

DM was all talk. His resume tells you what his intentions were. The best fighter in the world shouldn't have had to have gone to Germany in 2001, ESPECIALLY based on being the victim of the worst robbery in the HISTORY of the Olympics the last time he was in front of foreign judges in a foreign country getting flat out robbed in Korea. Jones was PFP which overshadows a division ranking of DM. PFP #1 is clearly A side.

[richardt]

There could be a scientific reason for that

Losing all that muscle and going back down to light heavyweight probably played a big factor in his chin resistance and i know he wasnt kod in the first tarver fight but the second

The ruiz fight and the two Tarver fights were in the space of 14 months

The first fight dropping 20 lbs of muscle to make weight and then another fight not long after to keep the weight off did permanent damage to roy


He also fought and got ko'd 4 months after by Glen Johnson

I feel like the recovery times he gave himself werent very educated and we dont see that sort of return to the ring in such short notice or against high level competition when someone loses by ko in recent times

I feel it was more the camps he put himself through especially the second Tarver fight that caused his problems

i dont beleive he was chinny i just think he broke his body down and we all know once you get cracked your chin resistance plummets and id guess it varies depending on who you are but it was drastic in Roys case

True. No one hurt or stopped Jones in his prime and it is impossible to take that many shots over the years and have a faulty chin without ever having been down or hurt or stopped in his prime. What Jones did was get caught up in Tarver's big mouth and did not adjust to 175 after heavyweight in such a short order. By losing muscles instead of fat weight, those muscles atrophy and Jones had finally aged his gifts. He was gaunt going into the ring in Tarver 1. I could not believe Jones complexion was a shade of dark gray as he was walking to the ring. He was done by then at the highest capacity.

Another good example is Leonard in his prime took flush shots from Hagler and Hearns but when he aged and came back down from 160 plus, to fight Norris and Camacho at the lower weights, he lost the ability to take a punch. Losing weight and age are a recipe for disaster.

Another case-in-point. Chris Byrd made a huge mistake going from heavyweight to 175 and I shook my head when he did that. He then fought a non-descript 175 pound fighter, Shaun George, a guy who was not even known for power (50% KO record) and he knocked Byrd out. He held up to heayweight punches and yet was knocked out by a non-descript heavyweight. Age and dropping weight did it to yet another fighter.

If I ever hear of a popular fighter who is older and starts talking about dropping a lot of weight to fight in a lower division, I will do everything in my power to get to him and show him that history is littered with those disasters.

My opinion, Jones first started showing his age against Eric Harding.

[dannnnn]

True. No one hurt or stopped Jones in his prime

Lou Del Valle dropped him hard.

[richardt]

Lou Del Valle dropped him hard.

That was at 175. It is widely known that Jones prime was 168, not 175.