Boxing's Mantle--What Is Roy Jones' Legacy?

Sports fans and historians require reference points to define potential, which is why up-and-coming athletes are so often compared to past greats. And if today’s hot prospect somehow lives up to his advance billing, you can bet that at some future date his career, provided it has aged well, will be cited as the standard against which the next up-and-comer will be assessed.

When Roy Jones Jr. was a youthful freak of nature, the fighters to whom he most often was measured were Sugar Ray Robinson and the pre-suspension Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali. Who else had that mystifying blend of hand speed, nimbleness and reflexes that seemed so otherworldly? To glimpse the early Jones at work was to imagine all of boxing’s possibilities, a rare melding of power and grace that comes along, if we are fortunate, maybe once a generation.

It has been 20 years since I first observed Jones operating on the preferred side of a talent chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon. Befuddled opponents soon discovered that fighting the brash kid from Pensacola, Fla., was like trying to put moonbeams in a bottle, only more painful. As was the case with the lithe and sleek Clay, Jones did everything wrong, like dropping his hands at his sides and pulling straight back from punches, but it turned out right because he had those mad skills. Who needs fundamentals and technique when you’re capable of making things up as you go along? Jones reminded me of jazz genius Miles Davis, riffing to a rhythm in his head only he could hear, producing sounds that trumpet players reading from sheet music couldn’t even imagine.

Now that Jones (52-4, 38 KOs) is 39 and about to throw down with Wales’ Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) in a 12-round non-title light heavyweight bout Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, I still have to admit that RJ is – or, at least, was -- the most physically gifted fighter of the past quarter-century. But I no longer use Miles Davis as the benchmark against whom Jones’ eroding magic is best gauged.

Like Mike Tyson, another of his contemporaries who tantalized the public with his might-have-beens, Jones most reminds me of the late, great New York Yankees slugger, Mickey Mantle, because I can only guess at how much of those vast stores of ability was actually utilized by any of them.

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