THE 100 GREATEST BOXERS OF ALL-TIME #54: ROY JONES, JR.

66 WINS (47 BY KO), 9 LOSSES

IBF Middleweight Titleholder 1993–1994

IBF Super Middleweight Titleholder 1994–1996

WBC Light Heavyweight Titleholder 1997–2004

WBA Light Heavyweight Titleholder 1998–2004

IBF Light Heavyweight Titleholder 1999–2004

WBA Heavyweight Titleholder 2003–2004

The Ring Fighter of the Year 1994

International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee 2022

It is one thing when a fighter appears so dominant in the ring that fans and pundits begin making comparisons to Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. It is an entirely different kind of measure when the comparisons are with Superman. Robinson and Ali were near unbeatable at their best, but no one ever confused them with invulnerable, otherworldly beings. Yet, for over a decade, Roy Jones seemed faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap weight divisions in a single bound. Thus, by the time 2003 rolled around and Jones became the first middleweight titlist to win a major heavyweight belt in over a century, the name of a certain red-caped superhero consistently appeared beside that of Jones in the boxing press.

The only thing a young Jones did not have in common with Kal-El was a mild-mannered alter-ego. From his start as an amateur out of Pensacola, Florida, he was a cocksure performer who enjoyed showboating and fighting with his hands by his knees. He enjoyed it because his opponents had no choice but to let him get away with it; any time they tried to spank the unruly child for his behavior, it would be they who took the whipping. His unprecedented athleticism was just too far beyond anything anyone had seen before in boxing. It was in this manner that a teenage Jones wound up so bedecked with medals in the amateurs that he would have made Audie Murphy jealous. That was until he ended up on the wrong side of the absolute worst decision in the history of Olympic boxing at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, a travesty that resulted in outrage, a corruption investigation, and an overhaul of the amateur boxing scoring system.

Overcoming his tearful discouragement at the robbery, Jones turned pro as a middleweight the next year and strung together 17 consecutive knockouts against admittedly limited opposition. Using dazzling speed to land combinations from unorthodox angles, he outboxed future Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins on May 22, 1993, at the RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. to take the vacant IBF middleweight (160 pounds) belt.

He made a single defense of his middleweight strap before making the first of many weight division jumps to face James Toney for the IBF’s super middleweight (168 pounds) honors in a battle of slick undefeated punchers. Many anticipated a closely fought affair, but Jones dominated the fight with astonishing ease, scoring a knockdown in the process of taking a twelve-round unanimous decision on November 18, 1994, at the MGM in Las Vegas. The boxing press, awe-struck by Jones’s rare combination of speed, power, and unpredictability, unanimously ordained Jones the mythic pound-for-pound king of the sport.

It is impossible to describe the Roy Jones signature style. It had to be seen to be believed. His physical gifts were so extraordinary, his reflexes so fine-tuned, that like Muhammad Ali before him, he was able to ignore the time-tested tenants of boxing technique in favor of an inimitable approach tailored to his talents. But Jones was not the dancer that Ali was. Ali usually fought with height and reach advantages over his opponents; Jones usually was at a disadvantage in those departments as he moved up weight. And he punched harder than Ali. So he developed his own brand of risk-taking, rule-defying, showboating boxing that emphasized his stunning blend of speed and punching power.

A master of multi-tasking and distractions as well as an all-around gifted athlete, Jones also juggled careers as a boxing commentator, rapper, and semi-pro basketball player at the height of his career. Before his June 15, 1996 super middleweight title defense against Eric Lucas at the Coliseum in Jacksonville, Florida, Jones had played with his United States Basketball League team, the Jacksonville Barracudas. He then knocked Lucas out in the eleventh round.

Jones made five defenses of his super middleweight belt, winning all by knockout, before invading the light heavyweight division and proving as dominant as ever. Though he never won the lineal title (That belonged to Poland’s Dariusz Michalczewski), Jones became the first light heavyweight to unify the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles and was awarded The Ring magazine belt as well.

Among the terrific fighters, Jones beat during his prime at light heavyweight were future Hall of Famer Mike McCallum and future world champion Julio Cesar Gonzalez. Still, Jones was widely criticized for his level of opposition at the weight. He defended himself by pointing out that it was not that his opponents were ordinary; it was that his abilities were so extraordinary. He was just so good that he made them look back. Attempts to lure Michaelczewski out of Germany to put his lineal championship on the line never produced a fight. In all, Jones spent seven years as a light heavyweight titlist and made 12 successful defenses of his WBC belt.

Looking back, perhaps Jones’s most impressive victory in this period was a rib-cracking fourth-round knockout of skilled future Hall of Famer Virgil Hill in a non-title fight just above the light heavyweight limit at the Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Mississippi on April 25, 1998. The one-punch body shot, delivered at snake-bite speed, sent Hill to the canvas in obvious agony, producing a highlight reel knockout for the ages.

It should be noted that Jones did test positive for steroids following a title defense against Richard Hall in 2000, though he later claimed the positive test was caused by a nasal decongestant he had been taking prior to the match.

On March 1, 2003, a 198-pound Jones easily outboxed 226-pound WBA heavyweight titlist John Ruiz over twelve rounds to become the first middleweight titlist to win a heavyweight strap since Bob Fitzsimmons, though none of Jones’s titles were lineal.

After that glorious win that had so many ready to put an “S” on his chest, age proved to be Roy’s Kryptonite. His once superhuman reflexes slowed considerably, exposing flawed technique, which in turn exposed a very vulnerable chin. Beginning with a shocking second-round knockout loss to Antonio Tarver in 2004, seven losses came in as many years, and a superhero fell to Earth stripped of his awesome powers. Fighting on as a mere mortal, he did not retire until 2018 at age 48.

Roy Jones Jr.’s record vs. Hall of Famers & lineal world champions:

1/10/1992 — W (KO) 1 — Jorge Vaca

5/22/1993 — W 12 — Bernard Hopkins

11/18/1994 — W 12 — James Toney

11/22/1996 — W 12 — Mike McCallum

4/25/1998 — W (KO) 4 — Virgil Hill

7/28/2001 — W 12 — Julio Cesar Gonzalez

1/19/2008 — W 12 — Felix Trinidad

11/8/2008 — L 12 — Joe Calzaghe

4/3/2010 — L 12 — Bernard Hopkins