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Courtesy www.frankmaloney.com
Roy Jones Jr., and always has been a conundrum. A man with a paradoxical capacity not only for heart-warming kindness but also unconscionable cruelty, he can flash an unassuming, seemingly genuine modesty whilst, usually with a bit more vocal inflection, be equally inclined to launch into an egotistical, cringe-inducing tirade in which he is likely to routinely refer to himself as “Roy Jones” in a tone thickly smeared with an arrogant and extremely unappealing vanity.
Nevertheless, he has always been a fighter intensely aware of the untold hazards that saturate his chosen profession and, on numerous occasions, has freely admitted to spending much of his fabled career in fear of permanently harming one of his adversaries. And as a consequence, often claims to have found himself subconsciously holding something back. Or in boxing terms, lacking a killer instinct.
But, as is the case with almost all of the loose change that jangles within his pockets, his oft-talked about streak of compassion is a coin that has a contradictory and somewhat unpleasant underside.
Think back to how he made you screw your face up in a grimace, round after round, year after year, until it became almost too much to stomach. After all, for a long, long time, the average fan didn’t tune into a Roy Jones fight to watch a sporting contest – he tuned in to witness legalized brutality.
Pitted against a string of hapless, predominantly overmatched opponents in the mid-to-latter part of his career, the showman in him would invariably come to the fore and, instead of putting each poor soul out of his misery quickly and, strange though it may sound, compassionately, we saw him consistently opt to taunt, humiliate and ultimately torture.
Easily pleased crowds presumably made up of the kind of casual fans that superstars such as Jones unfailingly seem to attract may have loved watching what amounted to a succession of glorified sparring sessions, but the way in which he gleefully mocked and punished a string of helpless victims led many in the industry to seriously question the character of the former four weight world champion.
His laudable and unceasing efforts on behalf of the injured Gerald McClellan coupled with the hugely important work he has done alongside Muhammad Ali in pursuit of global tolerance, however, seem to vehemently belie – albeit ostensibly – any assertions that he is or has ever been anything other than a fine role model and all around great guy. He was, in fact, at one point even labelled by a leading boxing writer as the sport’s ‘conscience.’
Regarded as the best fighter on the planet, pound-for-pound, for over a decade, the 37 year-old Jones remains one of the games greatest enigma’s. And, despite being a rapidly fading force having lost his previous three contests in emphatic fashion, his unanimous decision victory over journeyman Price Badi Ajamu – which took place last weekend at the distinctly unglamorous Qwest Arena in Boise, Idaho – was nonetheless subject to a level of media attention that one would ordinarily associate with a heavyweight title fight.
Although many who choose to watch him these days conceivably do so more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, Jones, who following his crushing defeats at the hands of Antonio Tarver and Glencoffe Johnson appears to have finally emancipated himself from the narcissistic bubble that he was embalmed in for a huge portion of his prize-fighting days, is amazingly still one of the biggest draws in boxing.
Against Ajamu, he showed that he is far from the washed up, delusional shell of his former self that many believed him to be, but there can be no denying that he is immeasurably more hittable than he was, say, five years ago and, although still extremely clever and capable, he clearly no longer possesses the unique blend of speed, power and elusiveness that served to make him almost unbeatable in his prime. Another title may not be out of the question, but sadly, neither would another devastating knockout loss.
Roy, you’ve got nothing left to prove.
