By Chen Zen from Jing Wu – So, here we are. On the cusp of upcoming and much anticipated ‘Mega fights’, ‘Dream fights’ and maybe a few boring fights… One Roy Jones JR is looking to change the current mind set of his critics and that of the general perception of him as a fighter who’s past his best days. Jones is looking to dethrone the current guardian of the Ring Magazine light heavyweight crown, Joe Calzaghe. The Pride of Wales aims to have this match serve him as his retirement fight and to go out with an undefeated record….
Jones has other plans.
Currently, according to Vegas odds, ‘Superman’ is the underdog at +220 to Calzaghe’s -300.
This is one writer that is going to go against the betting favorite and say that Roy Jones will follow in Bernard Hopkins’ age defying performance, and beat the Welsh dragon to score a career changing, and possibly loss nullifying victory! It wouldn’t be the first time that a skilled underdog shut the collective mouths of critics everywhere ( think Darchinyan’s splendid performance this past weekend ).
Regardless of what happens on November 8th I don’t think ill ever agree with any of the people who say that Joe may be one of the best fighters of the past decade. He DOES have an amazing record, (45-0-32) and no one can deny that. But it’s all about the quality of opposition, isn’t it? I can only name a handful of good fighters on his resume ( that is not to say that the rest aren‘t credible… ). And upon further inspection of his great KO percentage, (71.11 KO %) according to Boxrec.com, only TWO of those 32 are bona fide knockouts! The last one being in 1997!
I know this is coming off like a Joe C. Wales bashing session…and there’s some truth to that. Calzaghe has had some great victories, like the one where he completely dismantled ’Left Hook’ Lacy…The Kessler fight was a good one. Hmm, what else… Oh and the one where he barely eked out a split decision victory against a very un-motivated B-Hop…OK, OK…I’ll stop. Look, even if Joe pulls off an AMAZING victory over Roy Jones JR, I think my respect for him could only go up a modicum…And if I’m wrong about all of this I won’t wait for the hate mail to pour in, I’ll post a ‘sincere’ and ‘heartfelt’ apology to all the loyal ‘Super Joe’ fans I’ve upset.