Roy Jones Jr recently celebrated the twenty year anniversary of his heavyweight title win against John Ruiz.
The fight saw ‘RJJ’ move up to the sport’s premier division and beat Ruiz in a twelve-round unanimous decision to win the WBA title.
The win made him a four-weight world champion and the only boxer in history to kick off at super welterweight and win heavyweight world honours.
He’s rightly proud of the face, too, and marked the occasion on Twitter by claiming that nobody said he could do it.
“20 years ago today I accomplished what THEY all said I couldn’t do, but what GOD ORDAINED ME TO DO- become HEAVYWEIGHT champion of the world!”
Of course, there was another heavyweight champ at the time. Lennox Lewis was unified champion, previously undisputed before the WBA stripped him of the title for choosing another fight over his Ruiz mandatory.
He was, and is, regarded as one of the best ever, and, with no disrespect to John Ruiz, would have undoubtedly presented a trickier puzzle to the smaller man in Jones Jr.
Lewis responded to the celebratory tweet, pointing out to Jones that when people at the time said he couldn’t do it, ‘they didn’t mean John Ruiz.’
‘The Lion’ also said that the Ruiz win was ‘pretty low hanging fruit’, but admitted that it was still an achievement and that he was just winding the American up.
When they said you couldn’t do it, they didn’t mean John Ruiz. 😂😉 https://t.co/nVfaLhvCHQ
— Lennox Lewis, CBE, CM (@LennoxLewis) March 2, 2023
Both men are in the history books for good, even if a fight between them is resigned to the fantasy section.
Lewis’ feat of becoming undisputed champion in the division is currently being attempted once more, with Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk just one fight away from that honour.