Roy Jones Jr. Is Not Done – Yet.
No one wants to see such a great fighter end like so many fighters do — facing subpar competition just to hear the cheers one last time. When Roy Jones Jr. fought Willie Williams, (14-9-2 4 KOs), Friday night in Concord, NC, at the Cabarrus Arena, he knew the ramifications. No longer is he 168 pounds without an ounce of fat on his body. Now he holds 200 pounds comfortably on his 5-foot-11-inch frame. No longer does he stand in the middle of the ring and patronize his opponents, daring them to attempt a jab so that he can effortlessly counterpunch them. Now he patiently waits for an opening. No longer does he throw 15 and 20 punch combinations with tantalizing speed. Now he goes early and often to the body, and settles for occasional 10-12 punch combinations along the ropes.
Showing glimpses of the old Roy on Friday, Jones continued his journey to the elusive cruiserweight title by bludgeoning Williams early and often en route to a second-round stoppage. Blood splattered off Williams and across the ring as Jones honed in on Williams during a vicious combination in the second round, where he landed five or six hooks before the referee stepped in to call the one-sided bout.
“I just took my time in the first round,” said Jones. “Lateral movement in my old age wastes too much time. I was trying to box, and I was doing ok, but I got bored, so I was like, ‘Nah, brother.’ Then the hyena kicked in. He threw a lot of punches. I smelled blood, and knew he was a little tired. I could have boxed, but then the hyena took over.”
Although Jones stressed his defensive skills in pre-fight interviews, early in the first round, he immediately went on the offensive. With Williams coming forward, Jones sidestepped him and landed an uppercut, bided his time against the ropes — presumably to let Williams tire himself out — and then he went to the body. Yet, it wasn’t until Jones exhibited his masterful speed (Yes, at 46) that resulted in a nine-punch combination to start the second round. It proved the beginning of the end for the overmatched opponent.
“Who else does that?” said Jones. “Who throws 10-12 punch combinations in boxing anymore? Nobody! That’s what boxing’s been missing.”
The effusive Jones was at his best when he landed uppercuts in the middle of the ring and then walked away as only he can. For most of the bout, it was more about what Jones was capable of doing rather than what Williams couldn’t do. With WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck on the horizon, Jones pondered the possibilities when he asked, “How’s he going to do with it? He’s not as quick as I am.”
Leading into the main event, Charlotte’s own Quinton Rankin (8-2, 7 KOs) got off the canvas after a first round knockdown to stop Craig Duncan at 2:21 of the third round. Fueled by his hometown crowd, Rankin opened a cut over Duncan’s left eye and knocked him down twice. Duncan was unable to rise by the 10-count in the round in the third and final round.
“[Duncan] hit me in that first round,” said Rankin. “He hit me when I was turning and it was a legitimate shot. But my hook landed every time I threw it.”
Even on his final hurrah tour, Jones is incomparable in so many ways. He knows where he stands among the great fighters of his time. In his prime, he was untouchable. When he decided to move up in weight, he began to cement his legacy. When asked about what separated him and the Haglers and Hopkins, he definitively said, “Heavyweight. Winning the heavyweight title. That’s it. They never won the heavyweight title.”
What Jones did on Friday night was prove that he deserved, at the very least, an opportunity to continue on this journey. Few men are built like Jones physically and mentally; he rarely gets out of shape, and, more importantly, he rarely gets down emotionally. Although that attribute can hurt a fighter, the spirit imbued in Jones at 46 is a reflection of the same guy he was at 26. He still believes he can be great. Against a fighter like Williams, he did show glimpses of those vintage combinations. The question remains, does he have one more big fight against a guy who will fight back?
“Ismael was the sweetest kid I ever met,” said Ortiz, 38 years later. “He was like a kid. But the son-of-a-bitch, once he stepped into the ring, he was different.”
It’s almost as if the chant, Tee-GRAY, Tee-GRAY, can still be heard from Panama City to deep in the throes of Chiriqui, a province in the interior portion of the country, when the legend enters the arena. To some he is merely Ismael, but most in Panama refer to him as Tigre, a nickname he was granted in a butcher shop where he drank the blood of cows after he skinned them. Having witnessed the powerful history of the Panama Canal, in this country composed of nine provinces and two Comercas (Indian territories) there is only one Ismael Laguna. During the early 60’s and through to the late 70’s, fighters like Antonio “Buche” Amaya, Medina, Jesus Santamaria, and earlier greats like Isidro Martinez all defined the typical Panamanian stylist. Although not one of these spirited pugilists would ever win a world title, Amaya would earn the nickname “Campeon Sin Corona” due to the fact that he was robbed on two different occasions in title bouts with Hiroshi Kobayashi. Despite the suffocating provincialism, Martinez was tabbed as the “most beautiful boxer he’d ever seen” by Laguna. Back then, people looked to Laguna to make up for the heartache suffered by those who came before him. While the other talented Colon natives tip-toed along boxing’s periphery it was with Laguna – who would defeat Carlos Ortiz on April 10, 1965 for the first world title captured inside the country’s confines – that boxing became permanently ingrained in the people’s mindsets. “There were many places that in Maranon, not boxing gyms, but places where people were starting to box. In the yards of houses, people would set up rings and hold boxing matches,” said Nestor “Plomo” Quinones, longtime trainer of Roberto Duran. “They would set up rings outside these wooden houses and would set down wooden planks where the canvas would be, and then wrap round the ropes. Then, people would come and would stage boxing matches. It wasn’t a very big ring with many dimensions, but it was big enough to hold matches.” While Laguna grew up fighting in Colon, Ortiz didn’t have boxing on his radar. Playing a form of “Broadway Boxing” in the streets of Puerto Rico, there was a time when Ortiz never thought of the sport as more than a frivolous activity to pass the time. “In Puerto Rico we used to fill up (Mustela) coffee bags and we used to put them on, tie them up and we used to fight with them, like I was Broadway boxing,” he said. “We just fooled around and to have something to do, we invented things.” Arriving in the sport through a New York Boys Club in 1947, Ortiz followed the pitter patter of the punching bag into an amateur career, and soon enough a burgeoning professional career. Ortiz’s formal introduction to the sport came in a sports bar watching Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott with his father, but it wasn’t until the opportunity to actively participate that boxing became more than a show. Paying a penny a day to stay active in the Boys Club, Ortiz’s membership would pay dividends years later. Not one to get caught in the lure of the streets, Ortiz made the Club his new home. “It was the most beautiful club I’d ever seen,” Ortiz recalled. “It had a billiards room, everything you could want. The director took me upstairs to the basketball gym, I said, ‘I am too little.’ Then, I heard a noise from somewhere. I started paying attention. It was a kid upstairs punching the light bag. Boom, boom, and I said I got to see where that punch is coming from. We went upstairs and Archie Martella was there and I said I want to learn how to punch the bag, ‘It was the most beautiful noise I’d ever heard.’” The noise turned from a curiosity to an obsession. It didn’t take Ortiz long before he won the world lightweight title in 1962 after a stint as the light welterweight champ. Now, he was on a plane to Panama with trainer Teddy Benton with the hope of defying this young, unknown Panamanian. Laguna was the one man who could strike, then split, leaving his opponent throwing listless offerings. This was the same man who they made wear white boxing gloves during training sessions, because no one could believe the damage he was doing in the ring. And this type of style didn’t gibe with what Ortiz, or anyone, expected. “I didn’t know anything about him,” said Ortiz from a restaurant on 21st Ave in Manhattan. “When I signed for the fight, I knew that we were going to Panama and we were going to fight Ismael Laguna. He had fought all his fights in Panama, so I never saw him. It was a mystery. I didn’t know his style, but that’s the way it was in my fighting days, I didn’t care to see the guy. I used to go all over, when I stepped into the ring, that’s where I saw the fighter.” Ortiz did run into Laguna in a gym to hype the fight. They would take photos together, maybe talk to some local journalists. It marked the one time that Ortiz received a frame of reference for the man he would be facing. “We went to this gym in a beautiful hotel, and I said, ‘This is nothing where I’m staying.’ And I’m thinking that I’m the champion and I’m supposed to be the big shot. When I went to see him, he was at the Sheraton or something,” said Ortiz. “When I see this kid he was moving around the kid, you couldn’t see him because he was moving so quickly. I was thinking, ‘Oh God what did I get into?’ But he was very skinny, and he wasn’t built like a fighter. He was fast and tall and he had everything. “He was something that I did not expect to see. And I knew I was going to have a hard time. But I trained for the best, and I saw how he was. That was all I had to see. I wasn’t going to be surprised when I got into the ring.” Both fighters were respectful, and kind, never saying a bad thing about one another in the pre-fight activities. While Laguna’s idol was Isidro Martinez, Ortiz didn’t have a man he looked up to. As he put it, “I always wanted to be Carlos Ortiz. I never wanted to be anyone else.” One thing was clear: Laguna’s speed and movement concerned Ortiz. Laguna didn’t plod or charge aimlessly; he didn’t follow or chase; no Laguna glided, juked and jived his opponent offering a free shot and then immediately retracting the offer. Early on, Ortiz was forced to adapt. “I got a big surprise because he was better than what I thought,” recalled Ortiz. “I had a big problem in front of me and the fight started and I started boxing him and looking for ways to counter his moves and do what I wanted him to do. And he wouldn’t do it. I was the aggressor and he was the aggressor and he would counter everything that I threw at him.” Laguna was in the midst of becoming an overnight hero; somewhere a 15-year old Duran was watching in awe, thinking, “I’m next.” From the first to the final round, Laguna cut off the ring, took chances that he accurately computed in his mind beforehand, and beat Ortiz to the punch. “This was happening round after round, and it was a helluva fight,” said Ortiz. “It was a fast fight and exciting, and every round I tried to dominate him at times. At times I kind of succeeded and at times he got the best of me. I was worried. Every round I came back and asked my trainers how I was doing. They just told me everything was going well and I was winning the fight. But I didn’t see it that way.” Conversely, Laguna stayed true to his gameplan. “Ortiz would hit and then hold me…. I’m not ever tired in there,” said Laguna years later watching the replay at a pizza place. “My trainer told me I was winning and to keep pressing the action. When the final bell sounded, Panama finally had its champion, and Laguna had taken the soul of Panama Brown, the missed opportunities of Antonio Amaya and Isidro Martinez, the sorrow of Sammy Medina, along with the hopes and dreams of every man or boy who’d ever stepped into a Colon Gym and threw a jab, and carried them into the ring that cool night. “Ismael was the sweetest kid I ever met,” said Ortiz, 38 years later. “He was like a kid. But the son-of-a-bitch, once he stepped into the ring, he was different.” He was different. He still is. And somewhere in Panama I can almost hear the chants far in the distance: Teegray, Teegray…. Teegray. They never seem to end. By Christian Giudice Author: Hands of Stone and Beloved Warrior christiangiudice@hotmail.com
