This is not an easy column to write. I’m a fan, and I don’t want to be guilty of piling on or maybe more appropriately, to kick a man when he’s down. But, in a little more than a week, I’ve heard the terms “Great” and “Future Hall of Famer” used with increasing frequency in describing Oscar De La Hoya and Roy Jones Jr. in the wake of their recent knockout losses. My position is that neither should count on a free pass to the hallowed hall in Canastota N.Y. They are good fighters, but not great. They might belong in the Merrill Lynch hall of fame, but do they truly belong in the hall that houses Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Willie Pep, and Archie Moore, among other undisputed greats?
Forget the number of title belts won. With the number of sanctioning bodies today, belts are there to be won if you move up or down, or both, in weight. Who knows how many title belts future generation fighters will hold with the continued proliferation of organizations to pass out championships as if they were jelly beans? Recent additions include the WBO, WBU, IBA, and by the time I go to my rest I expect to see the “WAS” title, {for over the hill or come backing fighters], the “NFE”, [for fighters who whine over close decisions], and the “WBS”, [for fighters boosted on steroids].
Oscar is the easier of the two to analyze. Despite his popularity, the fact remains that the man has now won exactly 60% of his last 10 fights. I won’t elaborate on the close decisions because they have been widely chronicled, but I count six decisions on his record that could have gone either way. I won’t hold Hopkins against his legacy; Oscar was simply out of his league.
If De La Hoya wanted to continue his career, he could. Unlike Jones, he doesn’t appear to have suffered any neurological damage. However, he would have to make some serious career and life choices to be worthy of being with those exalted greats. First, he would be well advised to return to his best weight- Welterweight- and concentrate on dominating that division to the exclusion of worshipping the false gods of profitable ventures such as reality shows. Secondly, he would need that hunger and heart that in the final analysis separates the good fighters from the Hall of Famers.
In the case of Roy Jones, Jr., he needs to get out, now, while he is still capable of serving as a color analyst if he so chooses. He is risking the prospect of Dementia Pugilistica by entering the ring to absorb more punishment. His legs, those multi-million dollar legs, are gone, and Jones, always a careful fighter, now hesitates not from caution, but because he can’t deliver the blows as he sees the openings. Worse, blows are being delivered because they are open and he doesn’t see them. Because he was so successful for so long, Jones has not learned to adapt to his fading physical prowess. He can’t maintain a defensive position , his hands don’t protect his chin, and now the whole boxing world knows that he doesn’t hit hard enough to keep an aggressive fighter off of him. For those reasons, I don’t think that his horrible performance against Glen Johnson was any accident.
How can a man with declining skills, a chin open to question now, without the legs needed for escape, and without the power to end a fight quickly have a chance for victory by connecting with 75 punches in nine rounds? And, not to take anything away from Johnson’s effort, but the man had won only 8 of his previous 19 fights upon entering the ring against Jones.
It might be age. Every athlete has an expiration date. But the decline happened so quickly that I can’t help but think that it might be related to his decision victory over John Ruiz for a share of the Heavyweight Championship, for reasons that I choose to keep to myself.
What remains for Jones is his place in history and the argument to put him up with the greats. The Light -Heavyweight division has historically suffered in prominence by being sandwiched between the glamour divisions of Middleweight and Heavyweight. Actually, many greats and near greats have graced that division, you just have to stop and think about it. To name a few: Archie Moore, Bob Foster, Georges Carpentier, Tommy Loughran, Billy Conn, Michael Spinks, Gene Tunney, and probably the best Light-Heavy in history, Ezzard Charles.
Roy’s caution in picking fights, his failure to take chances inside the ring, and the lack of a great rivalry doesn’t improve his case for boxing immortality. That and you could make a very strong case for each man listed above to be superior to Jones, even at his best. This could make the walk to the hall uphill, rather than a certainty. And, the longer that I dwell on it, the more names that come to my mind- Dick Tiger, Matthew Saud Muhammad, Jose Torres, Harold Johnson, Maxie Rosenbloom, and John Henry Lewis. By the time that this is printed, I’ll probably have myself convinced that Jones isn’t even in the top 10 of the division.
No one knows for sure what the future will hold. For De La Hoya, the choice is his own to make. For Jones, the record book is closed, or at least it should be. In boxing you never know. But aside from George Foreman, what fighter ever came back that didn’t eventually come to a bad end?