Putnam: JONES AIN’T WORTH HALF A HUNDRED
By TSS Predictions September 30th, 2005
Save your $50. Give it to a hurricane disaster fund. Buy a new bowling T-shirt for your wife. Go to a saloon. (That’s two o’s.) Pay $50 to watch Roy Jones play tarpaper shack in a Cat 5 hurricane? You’ve got to be kidding me. The guy was boring when he could fight. Sorry, I meant when he could box. He never fought, not in any real sense of the word. That china chin of his was the best-kept secret in sports. He did not just avoid honest combat, he ran from it. He was the fastest and the most skilled, but on any given day, 1000 other guys in leather mittens and short pants ranked far ahead of him as the bravest. His last two fights ended with him on his back, looking up, wondering where his legs had gone. With cable television paying him millions to fight tomato cans, he took his show to Portland, Oregon and Biloxi, Mississippi and Mashantucket, Connecticut. He fought people like Lou Del Valie and Reggie Johnson and David Telesco. He won by scores of 118-109, 119-109 and 118-109; and 120-106, 120-106 and 120-106; and 120-108, 120-106 and 120-108. He gave new meaning to the phrase brilliantly boring. So, if you want to blow fifty bucks to see Jones’ chin go three-for-three, be my guest. Or, you can flip to the other big cable channel and watch James Toney take the measure of somnambulist Dominick Guinn, followed by Chris Byrd winning a six-day dance marathon over a dangerous but frustrated DaVarryl Williamson.
Pat Putnam
(Pat Putnam is a feature writer for The Sweet Science who covered boxing for Sports Illustrated for 27 years. He is also the first recipient of The Sweet Science Lifetime Achievement Award. To access Pat’s work, simply CLICK HERE)
September 30th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
i couldn’t agree more about Jones
September 30th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
You said you never boxed and it shows. You have no idea what you are talking about and I can’t believe you call yourself a expert. Every Champion, Ex-Champion or Contender that Roy fought earned their rankings and reached the top of their sport through hard work and dedication. For someone like you to discount their and Roy’s accomplishments is disrespectful and ingnorant. Compare Roy’s list of opponents to any current or former champion and you will see the argument most try to make against him could be applied to any other champ or contender. Don’t be a fool and take the opportunity to jump on the bad bandwagon trying to degrade him now that he has had some misfortune. Almost every great has meet with misfortune or loss before their career was over. Doesn’t mean you can take away his accomplishments. It took an extreme amount of dedication, focus, commitment and heart (Something you must not know anything about) for Roy Jones to stay on top for so long, not luck or bogus opponents.
October 1st, 2005 at 1:47 am
My friend….You know the greatest gift we as american’s have. The gift of choice…If you don’t want to see the fight, don’t watch it..but don’t try and deter us from watching history in the making. I honestly hope all you sport writers admit you’re wrong when Roy Jones beats the holy crap out of Tarver. This man has been on top for 10 years…he fought everybody the governing bodies put in front of him…as soon as he proves to us that he’s indeed human just like every other fighter…we blast him…..and that’s not right…Tarver has went to far trying to insult this man’s family…..come saturday night he’d better be ready.
October 1st, 2005 at 5:27 am
Roy Jones will win this fight. In fact, Jones will win by KO.
He has to in order to establish himself as one of the all-time greats. If he loses by decision or loses by KO, any claim to belonging in the upper echelon of great fighters will no longer be valid. That will not, however, tarnish his status as the best fighter of this generation.
I look at the Tarver and Johnson losses like Kobe Bryant blowing past the Washington Wizard version of Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls circa 1991 takes Kobe to school.
I’ve always believed Jones’s skills allowed him to walk among the greats. Tonight he will prove or disspell my belief. I side with greatness.
October 1st, 2005 at 7:48 am
Pat I agree with you 100 percent. Roy was never worth $50, and if he was then Leonard, Duran, Hagler and Hearns fights should have sold for thousands of dollars. Sugar Ray was about the closest comparision to Jones. Both seeemed to have it all: speed,power,looks, etc The difference is Leonard fought everyone hard. He brawled (although this was mistake) with Duran, he hunted down Hearns and he beat Hagler. I’ll save my $50, drink a beer, put in a dvd of Leonard-Duran I and know I’ve missed nothing by passing on Jones-Tarver 3.
October 5th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
I can respect a fighter whose fighting style is boring. I can respect a fighter who boxes and avoids slugging it out with their opponent. What I can’t respect is a fighter who has all the skills to be great, but fights like a p****. Roy may be a talented, hotdogging, flashy , former champion, but he is also a boxer who wasted his potential and subjected true boxing fans to a form of fraud, by pretending to be a great fighter. Roy Jones should go down in history as the best pound for pound anti-fighter of all time. It’s bitter sweet irony that he was exposed by yet another blown up, over-hyped, s*** talking, candy a** boxer who also, by the way, honestly believes he’s a great champion. Mr. Putnam is on the money. I hope you didn’t waste yours.