The ring genius ‘Boxing News’ rated the best fighter of the last two decades is finally quitting and Boxing Social caught up with a couple of fighters who know all about just how good Roy Jones jr was.
Jones fought four Brits during a pro career that brought him world titles at four weights, from middleweight to heavyweight.
He fought Richie Woodhall when he was on the way up, at the Olympics, Joe Calzaghe, Courtney Fry and Enzo Maccarinelli on the way down and Clinton Woods faced him when he was nearer his brilliant, untouchable peak.
Woods actually regards Jones’ victory over him as the last big win of a career that, thankfully, comes to an end with his 75th fight, in home-city Pensacola on Thursday, February 8.
Woods had turned professional after a plea from his mother to stay out of trouble had got him back down the gym and to even his own surprise, he ended up challenging Jones for the undisputed light-heavyweight championship in Portland, Ohio, in September, 2002.
“I thought I would win a few, lose a few, then retire,” said Woods of his expectations for himself upon turning pro in 1994.
“The Central Area title would have been enough for me, but I ended up fighting the biggest name on the planet.”
Looking back, Woods says he over trained for the Jones fight, but accepted: “I knew I was going to lose. I knew I wasn’t good enough to beat Roy Jones. I had beaten good fighters like Crawford Ashley and Ole Klemetsen, but they weren’t Roy Jones.
“I just went in there to have a go.
“His punches weren’t that hard, they didn’t make me go dizzy, but he was just so fast.
“He could hit me and then be gone. His speed, his feints were different class. How could I prepare to fight him? There was nobody else out there like him.
“I caught him a few times in the first three rounds and then he caught me with a body shot towards the end of the third.
“I went back to my corner and the doctor told me I had bust ribs. After that, the fight was lost.”
Woods toughed it out until the sixth round and was still stopped on his feet.
“He only said two words to me afterwards,” remembered Woods. “’Nothing personal.’”
Woods and Jones were reunited at a dinner evening in Jersey a year or so ago.
“They kept asking: ‘Would you fight Roy again ?’ I kept saying: ‘I’ve retired,’” said Woods, who runs a successful fitness gym in Sheffield.
“But they kept asking the question.
“If the money were right I probably would fight him again, but I don’t think my wife would allow it!
“He shouldn’t still be fighting either and I just people remember him for how good he was when he was fighting people like James Toney – and me.”
The world first became aware of Jones’s talents at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 where he was robbed of gold after beating Telford’s Richie Woodhall in the semi-finals.
“I remember my coach Kevin Hickey telling me: ‘This American is very, very quick,’” remembered Woodhall, a future WBC super-middleweight champion.
“He said: ‘you can’t make mistakes against him, you have to get behind the jab, get him to make mistakes.’
“He had this relaxed, low guard that was a trap. You thought you had him, he slipped away and hit you with three or four punches from all angles
“He would throw them from his knees – even from his ankles!
“He was special, very, very quick, and seemed to have this natural ability to not get hit.
“He was very hard to catch cleanly.
“His speed and power improved as he went on, but he always had that way of not getting hit and that’s natural, I don’t think you can teach that.
“If you look at the (Bernard) Hopkins and (James) Toney fights, they barely laid a glove on him.
“Jones came out of those fights without a mark on him and they were great, great fighters themselves.”
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