By Patrick Kehoe

Where once we stood in awe of the punching velocity turned over as power, during those spurting staccatos that seemed instantaneously invented, freezing an opponent’s determined aggressions, before decapitating them, we now look for signature flaring of Roy Jones showing his old hand speed against a shot Felix Trinidad.

Jones, in his unforgettable prime, rarely jabbed his way in or punched in straight lines and yet his were inevitably the first blows to land; his rate of searing release and repetitive register either melted the contact point of tissue and bone and cartilage or collapsed the combative will of the opponent into a resigned malaise. Think of Virgil Hill or Tony Thornton or Glen Kelly and try not to cringe. Once in the ring with Roy Jones, even a prime fighting force such as James Toney understood the consolation of staring at his match, his superior, and the wisdom of fighting in accordance with the law governing survival.

Even applying his most effective punches c. 2008, Roy Jones doesn’t so much prey upon the limitations of fighters any more as seek to find openings – the modus operandi of mortal ring men. He studies and tries to apply punishing solutions to the problems that upstarts such as Anthony Hanshaw muster. Gone are Roy Jones’ invocations of counter intuitive boxing – no jab to initiate exchanges, leaning back from power shots, trigger fast hooks, lunging uppercuts – instead Jones employs the jab, keeping his balance, selecting punching patterns he’s calculated will be effective counter measures to what his opponent are most able to hurt him with.

Without the impunity of his prime foot speed and the elite cardio fitness that allowed him to throw 90% power shots each and every round, Jones detonates strategic counters, measured mainly from semi-static positions at ring center or along the ropes, when he finds need of temporary reprieves from making so much effort to stay on top, in control and boxing fluidly. One only need look at the position of his hands in 1999 and now to understand just what final determinations the great man has made for himself, indeed, how he views himself as in serious need of conventional protection, as vulnerable to the fits of an opponent’s offerings or the static discharges of misfortune stalking him.

Once his defiance could be real or imagined, a visceral product of irritation with redundant media interviewing or the flash point of his emotional register set off by those trying to actually compare themselves to RJ, hip-hop boxing singularity, master of defining sporting moments, ego supreme, conqueror of Bernard Hopkins and James Toney and Mike McCallum and Virgil Hill and even John Ruiz. Now Roy Jones, 39 years old, talks in diplomatic terms, his sense of humour engaging and warm and sincere, unfettered by vanities youthful obsessing.

More at ease in public, his sense of a legacy secure, Jones now maintains a more casual rapport with the media and his fans, as if he’s no longer taking for granted life and his status as a minor celebrity. He should know by now that the legacy of what he once was in the ring has become a bench mark, a historical precedent for all those talents to come to try and live up to, emulate and better. And good luck to them, Jones’ smiles more than suggests.

Raising fighting game birds, playing semi-pro b-ball with Eric Lucas on deck, shouting down Bernard Hopkins, being Nike endorsed, kicking up his heals with the Radio City Rockettes, fighting past boredom and the mental fatigue of continuous success, living out the creed of pound for pound king of boxing, inverting the historical notion of risk-reward opportunism, fighting past the excepted boundaries of physiology, wisely profiteering between the cracks of the WBC, WBA, and mainly the IBF’s governing regulations, and the sheer uniqueness of his talent for exhibitionism in all of its forms, denying Dariusz Michalczewski to over indulge Antonio Tarver, spouting homespun truths or derogatory trash talking jibes or meditative confessions or ringside analysis, Jones’ countless personas have been lived and expressed diamond like in their glinting facets.

He may never have scaled the economic heights of Oscar De La Hoya nor radiated the celebrity discharge of Mike Tyson; but, he was a man for his times.

And for all of his multi millions made and invested wisely and championship divisions plundered and headline sparring sessions sold via HBO to the world and posterity itself, Roy Jones cannot quite, yet, get enough of living out the experience of being a boxer, a superstar within the matrix of celebrity capitalism. Surely, he enjoys the flood lights that bring exposure to himself as an important man, an entertainer, a sporting marvel even in decline, and yet, he still chooses to believe, to trust in his being a fighter of some reckoning. 

One can hear the echoes of his boyhood hero, Sugar Ray Leonard, when Roy Jones admits he cannot get past boxing, not quite yet; he cannot give up the daunting demands of putting his body through the protracted rigors of training and dietary stricture. Back into the disciplined certitude of training he volunteers himself – a kind of addictive sentencing – seeking to once again become a man of mastery, athletic purposefulness and a ‘some-body’ lauded for achieved excellence.

And a guy willing to give the big time one more shot at him, braving humiliation?

More than the money – and yes Roy has always been about the money – more than the rapture of fame – and Roy does live for the implicit love fame simulates – more than the chance to defy expectations – no doubt Roy Jones burns for incontrovertible proof of his greatness, Jones keeps on boxing to feel again and again that state of being himself, just as he imagines, remembers and demands.

Roy Jones likes the idea of fighting Joe Calzaghe, three years his younger, though blessed with hand speed and awkward effectiveness, the Welshman has also been cursed with bad hands. And as a result, their fight, a swan song for both fighters – even with the rematch clause in the case of a Jones win – will be a contest of punching speed and distances covered and defensive acuity, stitched along irregular lines of temperamental creativity.

Not that anyone expects raw power exchanges at the end of head long rushes capping off physical assertions of muscular bravado. Though a real fight might break out; anything is possible. After all, Jones gets to fight a guy in his house, America, with his style template, idiosyncratic boxer, who’s not bringing one punch heat. That’s about as much as Jones could hope for at this autumnal stage of his elite career. There are enough issues of convergence and possibility for Roy Jones to imagine all sorts of ways he might surprise the boxing world. Sure, we never forget, he may not be RJ, but, he’s still Roy Jones.

If victory begins as a resolution of mind; who knows?

Who would have ever imagined Roy Jones having to worry about being out boxed over the distance against a guy without his Sunday best punch, to keep Jones honest? Or Jones going into a boxing match more than a fight and NOT being the favourite? Yes, then we remember this is 2008 and Roy Jones today lives with the conditional understanding that he’s retooled his ring self after having been knocked dizzy then cold by Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson; so anyway, Roy Jones has decided to float back into the limelight, since at worst, it means losing a decision in a boxing match defined by technical exchanges, applied hand and foot speed and over all cardio fitness. That’s the kind of ‘for millions of dollars’ pay day at the “Mecca of Boxing” that Roy Jones finds more than palatable!

Part of Roy Jones is content to cash out on his fame game majesty.

Part of Roy Jones trusts in his becoming enough of his old self to win a mainly technical, aerobic boxing match and have something on Bernard Hopkins, to keep him warm for his impending retirement.

Part of Jones attempting to defeat Joe Calzaghe is to prove a point of exacting professionalism, a major retrospective point of honour: that he ROY JONES was the greatest of his generation, Joe Calzaghe falling chronologically within the timeframe of Roy Jones Jr., pound for pound king of boxing.

Part of Roy Jones wishes to be more than just a man trying to relive past glories; he doesn’t wish to reinvent himself; he wants to find himself, complete, the man of dominance, capable of the marvellous, the majestic, the unique.

Part of Roy Jones hopes to enthral us, entertain us, asking of us, one more time, to acknowledge him for what he brings to his profession.

Part of Roy Jones needs the respect he only found as a boxing champion as the supreme boxing talent of his generation.

Part of him dreams of being fully alive and as engaged in the operatic sporting moment as is possible, for that has been his habitat for most of his existence.

Part of him fears the closures and mitigations that advancing age dictate to the body and mind of even imperious men.

Part of Roy Jones years for the satisfaction of completing a task his heart and mind have obligated for him.

Part of Roy Jones actually hears his name ringing out as shouts acclaiming him a king.

Patrick Kehoe may be reached at pkehoe@telus.net