Roy Jones' Greatest Excuses!!

[-EX-]

Unless his opponent is very strong Roy will not get KTFO again. If he gets in trouble he can run.

I would LMAO if Roy pulled a Hopkins and whooped this guy's ass. That would be nice to see, lol.


DiegoFuego why don't u like Roy?

[kingtriton24]

It's sad to see a once great fighter coming up with different excuses to why his career has gone downhill. Downhill slides in boxing are the worst out of all the sports. It's hard for fighters to come to grips with reality, they get stuck in denial a lot of times. I just hope he doesn't get embarrased, his next fight is basically a lose lose for Roy.

[Njord777]

Boxing today has changed. I read an article the other day about Sugar Ray Robinson's career and how he would have 13 fights a year. That's...more than a fight a month. Can you simply imagine that in today's sport? Boxers take two months to simply announce a fight, three to train, often they only have one or two fights a year. Insanity. In today's business three losses makes you washed up. Back in the day...three losses in a year still meant you won roughly 77% of your fights that year. You weren't done. We're very harsh with our fighters in today's boxing world. It's a tough place. I recall how Rocky Juarez commented on how shocked he was that HBO, so many of his fans, and the major powers that be in boxing simply forgot about him after a single loss. How hard it was for him to get there against Barrera. Everyone had a perfect record based on a built-resume today....maybe if Roy had existed fifty, sixty years ago he would have been given more time to rebound.

[DiegoFuego]

Unless his opponent is very strong Roy will not get KTFO again. If he gets in trouble he can run.

I would LMAO if Roy pulled a Hopkins and whooped this guy's ass. That would be nice to see, lol.


DiegoFuego why don't u like Roy?

Because he's just a walking pile of excuses. Always has been. He fought mandatories, which no great champions do unless they are actually worthy opponents. He should have been fighting the toughest opponents from 168-190lbs, which at the time included oh so many good opponents, but he found his home at light heavyweight, which was a dead division at the time. Montell Griffin was the best that division could come up with aside from Roy, which is a joke. He could have made a lot of fights at 168 and 190 that he never attempted to make. Then he called out the one heavyweight champion whose style was a guaranteed win for Roy, beat him, and claimed he was the heavyweight champion. Then of course he got beat up by my boy Tarver and used an excuse to write Tarver off. Thankfully Tarver knocked his bitchass out 6 months later in my 2nd favorite night of boxing of all time.

[italianmafia23]

keep in mind, this article is by Dan Rafael who runs boxing for ESPN and used to run it for USA Today so his opinion is pretty damn influential.

Yeah, you're right. If Dan Rafael said it, it must be true.

So Roy was ****y and made excuses... and? He's definately not the first great to do such. Doesn't really say much about his legacy or natural ability now does it? Anyone knowledgeable in nutrition and weight training knows going up and down in weight like that isn't healthy, so his original excuse is valid. The rest is more egocentric, but doesn't really prove anything at all. Seems like a petty attempt to create hatred for a boxing legend to down play his status and future legacy. Try not to promote character assasinating opinionated diatribes in the future if you wish to be successful in making your point of a particular fighter being overrated, or whatever it was that you were trying to prove...

Maybe I'm missing your point...

[Technical_Skill]

From ESPN.com

Nine months removed from his third consecutive lopsided loss -- two of which were by brutal knockout -- the once great Roy Jones Jr. carries on, apparently oblivious to reality.

He is a long way from the perch he once resided on, the one he once bragged about on the rap tune "And Still."

I'm Mr. Unstoppable
And still I'm Mr. Undroppable
And still I'm Mr. Invincible, Mr. Unbeatable
And still Mr. Unknockoutable

Times change. He is no longer any of those things.

He is no longer champion. No longer impossible to hit. No longer immune to losing so much as a round.

At age 37, he is a shell of the once dynamic fighter who ruled the pound-for-pound rankings with an iron first for a decade.

Yet Jones (49-4, 38 KOs), limping to the end of a once-glorious career, will fight again Saturday night when he faces Camden, N.J.'s Badi Ajamu (25-2-1, 14 KOs), a fringe light heavyweight contender and cousin of the late Floyd Patterson, on a cut-rate $25 pay-per-view card (9 ET) from the Qwest Arena in Boise, Idaho.

Could Jones be any further removed from the bright lights of Las Vegas or any of the other major venues he once packed? Any more distant from the glamour of HBO PPV, the pinnacle of the sport?

What Jones does have left, however, is bravado because he talks as though the losses are simply blips instead of comprehensive and crushing defeats. He talks as if he needs to make just an adjustment here or there in order to be right back at the top of the sport.

"Right now, people doubt that I can come back from what I have been through, so that makes it fun again," Jones said at a recent breakfast. "This is mainly to prove that once you go down, they think old fighters can't come back. That's good. I'm still a young man, a very young man. I never once considered retirement."

In March 2003, Jones was on the top of the world and looked like he could still dominate for years to come.

A former middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight champion, Jones became the second former middleweight champion in more than 100 years to move up and win a heavyweight crown when he dethroned John Ruiz in a near-flawless performance.

Since then, Jones' decline has been fast and furious. He followed the Ruiz fight by returning to light heavyweight. Although he gutted out a majority decision victory in a light heavyweight championship fight against Antonio Tarver in November 2003, signs of slippage were evident.

Then Jones went off the cliff.

Tarver drilled him in the second round of their May 2004 rematch. Glen Johnson followed by abusing Jones before knocking him cold in the ninth round of their September 2004 title fight.

In his most recent outing, Jones was in survival mode from the opening bell in his October 2005 rubber match with Tarver. Jones was nearly knocked out and, although he made it to the final bell, he lost a lopsided decision.

Naturally, Jones has reasons for all of the losses.

For the first two struggles with Tarver and the Johnson loss, Jones blamed losing more than 30 pounds, mostly muscle, to trim down from heavyweight to 175 pounds.

"It took a long time to get back to normal, a year and a half almost," Jones said. "It's really a strange situation. What I did for Ruiz, I knew I would make a sacrifice that may hurt me for the rest of my career. Losing the weight, it shocks your body. Even for the Glen Johnson fight, I was dehydrated. My body still hadn't readjusted. I'd walk around with my mouth dry all the time."

For the third Tarver fight, Jones unleashed a hummer of a reason for the loss: Chaos in his corner, stemming from the surprise return (and obviously ill-advised) return of his father, Roy Jones Sr.

After a long estrangement, Jones brought his father back into the fold for the first time since before he won his first championship in 1993. Jones Sr. had taught his son how to box. He trained his son to be a star amateur and then during his early pro career until a serious falling out.

For the Tarver fight, Jones Sr. would share training duties with the loyal Alton Merkerson, who had been with Jones throughout all of his championship fights. Jones would train with Merkerson at one gym for part of the day and then head across Pensacola, Fla., to his father's gym for another training session.

During the fight, the plan was for Jones' father to speak first between rounds before yielding in order for Merkerson to have his say. During the fight, it didn't quite work out that way.

Jones Sr. dominated while Merkerson stood silent. Jones said his father even had one of the assistants literally try to tug Merkerson off the ring apron in order to make room for Jones Sr.

"When you look at the Tarver fight last time, I didn't feel like it was my age but all the other stuff I got going on," Jones said. "If I told you all the stuff I had on me, you wouldn't believe it. But I'm not here to tell you all that. I'm here to tell you that's all in the past and I can move on."

However, when pressed on what exactly he meant, Jones paused before answering.

"You want to know the truth? The whole truth," Jones asked slowly. "You might get mad at me for telling you the truth, but I'm going to tell you the truth. If I knock him out, who'll get the glory? Everybody would have given the glory to Roy Jones Sr. No glory would have gone to God nor myself. So would that have been right? If I won that fight any kind of way my father gets all the glory."

Jones said he didn't throw the fight, but subconsciously his father's presence didn't allow him to win.

"It was established before the fight who would talk, but it changed during the fight," Jones said. "You [Jones Sr.] push Merk out [of] the way and talk, and now I can't get Merk to say nothing. I'm seeing it all and trying to deal with all this. Somebody didn't stick to their side of the agreement. You know who it was. It's a pretty deep statement, but my father don't deserve [the glory]. He's a sharp guy. If he stuck to the plan, it all works for everybody. But he didn't stick to the plan."

Jones continued to pour out his emotions regarding his father, even comparing him to a dog.

"Sometimes having a dog in your yard causes problems for your neighbor," Jones said. "It's not that it's a good dog or a bad dog. But to have him there causes too much havoc. So sometimes you have to move it. So having [Jones Sr. in the corner] was good but it was more bad than good. He is the best, smartest dude I know as far as boxing skills, don't get me wrong. Nobody can teach me like he taught me. But at the same time there are other things that come along with it like that situation with Merk.

"I got to sit in the corner and deal with it and I'm fighting. People worry about me feeling bad for me, and I'm worried and feeling bad for Merk. Understand me?

"You don't know like I know that this man [Jones Sr.] would treat him [pointing to a reporter] better than he would treat me, and I am his own son, and this [reporter] is a white man. Kinda deep, ain't it?"

Jones said by the eighth round, he was concerned only with not getting knocked out again.

"I'm not going nowhere. I understood there was nothing I could do," Jones said. "You just got to do what you got to do to survive. You're out here by yourself. There's a fight going on in the corner, there's a fight going on out here. You got a lot going on. There was too much going on for me to win."

Jones' attitude is different heading into the fight with Ajamu. Jones Sr. has been banished again and Merkerson will be the only voice in the corner.

Jones said he is using the fight as a tuneup, and expects to win and move on to a title fight, preferably a rematch with Glen Johnson should he claim a title belt against Clinton Woods on Sept. 2.

"If I don't go through this guy, it's time for me to stop," Jones said of Ajamu. "If I don't go through him, it's time for Roy to stop. If I see at any point it ain't working, I will stop. But I have to do this for my mind."

Only then did Jones concede that he isn't what he once was.

"We all go through our ups and downs," he said. "If you follow sports, all teams go through their ups and downs. The Lakers were good for a long time, then they're down for a long time, then they got to build back up. In boxing, fighters go up to the top. Sometimes they come down and they got to rebuild. I was up there for so long, it seemed like I would never have to rebuild. But when the time comes, I got to rebuild. This [fight] is to prove something to myself. Nothing else.

"When I was on top all them years, I was happy, right? No sense in me being sad when my times comes. Every dog [is] going to have his day. Your time will come. I'm not complaining."


this is just getting ridiculous

LMAO. one of the funniest threads ive seen in ages.

[italianmafia23]

Because he's just a walking pile of excuses. Always has been. He fought mandatories, which no great champions do unless they are actually worthy opponents. He should have been fighting the toughest opponents from 168-190lbs, which at the time included oh so many good opponents, but he found his home at light heavyweight, which was a dead division at the time. Montell Griffin was the best that division could come up with aside from Roy, which is a joke. He could have made a lot of fights at 168 and 190 that he never attempted to make. Then he called out the one heavyweight champion whose style was a guaranteed win for Roy, beat him, and claimed he was the heavyweight champion. Then of course he got beat up by my boy Tarver and used an excuse to write Tarver off. Thankfully Tarver knocked his bitchass out 6 months later in my 2nd favorite night of boxing of all time.

He was to small to be a Heavyweight, and even Cruiser would be pushing it. He was 5'11 and a natural 175. His body really took a toll from gaining all that weight and dropping it as well improperly.

Montell Griffin was a quality opponent at the time Roy faced him. He's faded now, but was certainly never a bum. It should also be important to note that Roy also faced the likes of Bernard Hopkins and James Toney, handing both a relatively easy defeat. Jones also handed 8 undefeated opponents their first losses. One of those undefeated contenders was Eric Harding who, need I remind you, had defeated "your boy Tarver" by a relatively easy decision as well just one match prior to his fight against Roy. And we all know what happened to Tarver when he fought the "past his prime" Bernard Hopkins.

[Dorian]

wow... so many jones haters here.
The guy is one of a kind... there won't be another jones.

[BROOKLYN CESAR]

Because he's just a walking pile of excuses. Always has been. He fought mandatories, which no great champions do unless they are actually worthy opponents. He should have been fighting the toughest opponents from 168-190lbs, which at the time included oh so many good opponents, but he found his home at light heavyweight, which was a dead division at the time. Montell Griffin was the best that division could come up with aside from Roy, which is a joke. He could have made a lot of fights at 168 and 190 that he never attempted to make. Then he called out the one heavyweight champion whose style was a guaranteed win for Roy, beat him, and claimed he was the heavyweight champion. Then of course he got beat up by my boy Tarver and used an excuse to write Tarver off. Thankfully Tarver knocked his bitchass out 6 months later in my 2nd favorite night of boxing of all time.

Who is Tarver, B Hop showed everyone how good Tarver really is!!! Roy May have slipped over the years but Tarver slipped from the start!!! He said roy set the bar now its mine and im going to raise it!!! lol what big ****en joke that was!!! the bar got to heavy and landed on his fat head!!! Tarver is the punk ***** not roy!!! Excuses aye tarver fights like a ***** look at how he fought Harding the first time, both times!!! Magic man Hahahaha Magic man who vanished like a poof!!! Lets see him step up to heavyweight and beat the champ!!!! beit Ruiz or anyone lets see how he does against that kind of weight difference!!!

Roy has done alot more in the ring then tarver can ever hope to!!!

[Left2body]

Since when do fighters have up and down careers? The only example I can think of is Mosley who was down from 2002-2005 basically and is now on top again. Other than that, fighters don't just rebuild themselves. They suffer 3-4 rushing losses in a row and they are usually done.

Are you serious. Hmmmm, how about Corrales after his loss to PBF then Casamayor had a tremendous run with wins over Casa, Castillo and Freitas and made it back on to many peoples p4p list. .

How about Duran after losses to SRL and Benitez won a few good fights and put himself back towards the top. He then lost to Hearns and Hagler but made it back to the top again and beat Iran Barkley.

Winky Wright after losing to Vargas. Went and became a p4p after that loss.

Barrera had a few ups and downs in his career.

So before you call a great fighter ****** why dont you look sit down and think about what you write.