Roy Jones Jr: The Life Story Behind Boxing's Superman
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There are fighters who win by being stronger, and fighters who win by being tougher, and then there is Roy Jones Jr, who won by being faster than seemed possible. People who saw him in his prime still struggle to describe it. He would throw a punch from a place where no punch should come from, land it, and be gone before his opponent could answer. He would drop his hands, lean back from a punch that missed by an inch, and smile. He would win rounds without seeming to try, and he would finish fights with shots that looked as if they had been thrown in a different speed from everyone else in the ring. Commentators reached for the same word again and again. They called him Superman, and for a long stretch of the 1990s, the name fitted.
Roy Jones Jr was born in Pensacola, Florida, and his path to the top was shaped by two forces that pulled in opposite directions. One was a gift so rare that trainers could see it the first time he put on gloves. The other was a father who trained him with a hardness that Roy has spoken about honestly in later years, a hardness that made him tough and also left its mark. That tension runs through his whole story. The speed came from nature, but the toughness came from a childhood where boxing was not a game and where quitting was not an option.
His career took him further than almost any boxer of his time. He won an Olympic silver medal in Seoul in 1988 in a final that is still remembered as one of the most unfair decisions in Olympic history. He became a world champion at middleweight, super middleweight, and light heavyweight, and then, in 2003, he did something no fighter had done in more than a hundred years: he moved up from middleweight all the way to heavyweight and won a world title there, beating John Ruiz. He fought on for many years after his peak, longer than he should have, and the later part of his career became a sadder story, about a great fighter who could not let go of the ring. This is the story of the speed, the titles, the long goodbye, and the man behind the cape.
A Hard Childhood in Pensacola
Roy Levesta Jones Jr was born on 16 January 1969 in Pensacola, Florida, a port city on the Gulf Coast, and he grew up in a household where boxing was both a living and a law. His father, Roy Jones Sr, was a former boxer who became a trainer, and he ran a gym where young fighters learned the sport the hard way. Roy Jr started boxing as a small boy, and his father trained him with a strictness that went far beyond what most children experience. Roy has said in interviews that his father was tough on him, that training could be punishing, and that he sometimes feared his father more than he feared any opponent. Those are painful words to read, and Roy has never tried to hide them. He has also said that the toughness made him the fighter he became, and that he learned to take a punch, to keep going when he was hurt, and to never show weakness in the ring.
Pensacola itself was a working-class city, with a naval air station, a port, and neighbourhoods where sport offered one of the few clear roads to a better life. For a boy with quick hands and quick feet, boxing was that road. Roy was fast from the start, and his father built his style around that speed. He learned to move, to slip punches, to counter, and to use his reflexes in a way that other young fighters could not copy. The gym was his school, and the lessons were simple: work hard, listen, and do not quit. He won amateur titles as a teenager, and by the time he was in his late teens, people in American boxing were talking about him as a special talent, a young man who might one day be the best fighter in the world.
His amateur career reached its peak at the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988. Roy fought in the light middleweight division, and he moved through the tournament with a brilliance that left no doubt about who the best boxer in the division was. In the final, he faced Park Si-hun of South Korea, the home fighter, and Roy dominated the fight. He landed far more punches, he hurt Park more than once, and most people watching, including the television commentators, expected a clear win for the American. When the judges’ decision was announced, it went to Park, by three votes to two. The result shocked the arena, and it shocked the boxing world. Even Park himself seemed surprised. The decision is still widely regarded as one of the worst in Olympic boxing history, and it led to changes in how Olympic bouts were scored.
Roy took the silver medal, but the robbery, as many people called it, became a defining moment. He had been the best fighter in the tournament, and he had not been given the gold. Some fighters would have been broken by that. Roy turned professional the following year, in 1989, and he carried the memory of Seoul with him. He did not need to be told that boxing could be unfair. He had learned it on the biggest stage in sport, at nineteen years old. The lesson made him hungrier, and it gave his professional career a sense of mission: he would win so clearly that no judge could ever take it away from him again.
The Professional Rise and the Middleweight Crown
Roy Jones Jr turned professional in May 1989, and his early fights showed at once that his speed had survived the move from the amateurs. He knocked out most of his early opponents, and he did it with a style that looked different from everyone else’s. He fought with his hands down, which most trainers would call a mistake, but for Roy it was a weapon. With his hands low, he could see everything, he could move faster, and he could throw punches from angles that his opponents did not expect. He would lean back from a punch, let it pass his face by a fraction, and then land a counter that his opponent never saw coming. It was beautiful to watch, and it was also dangerous, because it depended on reflexes that would one day slow down. In the early 1990s, though, those reflexes were perfect.
In May 1993, in only his twenty-second professional fight, Roy won his first world title, beating Bernard Hopkins on points for the IBF middleweight championship. Hopkins would go on to become one of the greatest middleweights of all time, and the fact that Roy beat him so clearly, at a time when both men were young, tells you how good Roy was. Hopkins was strong, clever, and hard to hit, and Roy outboxed him over twelve rounds, landing the cleaner shots and controlling the fight. It was a mature performance from a twenty-four-year-old, and it announced him as a genuine world champion rather than only a talented prospect.
A year later, in November 1994, Roy moved up to super middleweight and faced James Toney, another of the great fighters of the era, for the IBF title. Toney was known for his defence, his counter-punching, and his toughness, and many people expected a close, hard fight. Roy made it look easy. He dropped Toney in the third round, he outlanded him in almost every round, and he won a wide decision that left no doubt. The performance is still talked about as one of the great displays of skill in modern boxing, because Toney was a superb fighter, and Roy made him look ordinary. After that night, there was a growing feeling in boxing that Roy Jones Jr might be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, the man who could beat anyone, in any division, on any night.
The wins kept coming, and Roy kept moving up in weight. He won the WBC light heavyweight title in 1996, beating Mike McCallum, and he began a long reign at light heavyweight that would last for years. He unified titles, he beat the best fighters in the division, and he did it with a style that seemed to break the rules of boxing and get away with it. He would fight with one hand behind his back, he would throw punches while moving backwards, and he would stand in front of an opponent and dare him to hit him. It was showmanship, but it was showmanship backed by real skill. The crowds loved it, and the other fighters in his division feared it, because they knew that once Roy found his rhythm, the fight was already slipping away from them.
The Light Heavyweight Years and the Tarver Rivalry
For most of the late 1990s, Roy Jones Jr was the king of the light heavyweight division, and his fights became events that boxing fans looked forward to. He beat fighters such as Montell Griffin, Virgil Hill, and Reggie Johnson, and he collected titles until he held the WBC, WBA, and IBF belts at the same time. His only loss in that period came in March 1997, when he was disqualified against Montell Griffin for hitting him while he was down. Roy won the rematch five months later by first-round knockout, and the defeat was wiped away so completely that most people remember the rematch more than the original fight. The disqualification was a reminder that even the fastest fighter in the world could make a mistake, but the rematch showed that he could correct it in the most brutal way possible.
Roy’s dominance at light heavyweight was built on a simple truth: nobody could hit him cleanly, and he could hit anybody. His footwork was superb, his hand speed was extraordinary, and his ability to see a punch coming and move just enough to avoid it was something that other fighters could study but not copy. He also had power, especially in his right hand, and he stopped many opponents who had never been stopped before. He was not a big puncher in the way a heavyweight is, but his punches landed so cleanly and so unexpectedly that they hurt more than they should have. Opponents would say afterwards that they had never seen the shot that knocked them down, and that was the highest compliment they could pay him.
Outside the ring, Roy was also building a life beyond boxing. He recorded rap music, he appeared in films, and he became a familiar face on television as a commentator. He had a personality that matched his style in the ring: confident, funny, and unafraid to speak his mind. Some people found him arrogant, and some of his showboating in the ring annoyed traditionalists who thought a champion should be more serious. But the crowds loved him, and the sport needed stars like him, fighters who could fill arenas and make people talk about boxing the next day. Roy was not only a great fighter. He was entertainment, and he knew it.
The light heavyweight years also set up the rivalry that would change his career. Antonio Tarver, a tall, clever southpaw from Florida, had been calling Roy out for years, and in November 2003, after Roy had returned from heavyweight, the two men finally met. Roy won a close majority decision, but the fight was hard, and it showed that Roy was no longer the untouchable fighter he had been. The rematch in May 2004 ended in disaster for Roy. Tarver knocked him out in the second round with a left hand that Roy never saw, and the aura of invincibility that had surrounded him for a decade was gone in a single punch. It was one of the most shocking results in modern boxing, and it marked the end of Roy’s prime.
Heavyweight Gold Against John Ruiz
The greatest achievement of Roy Jones Jr’s career came in March 2003, when he moved up to heavyweight and challenged John Ruiz for the WBA heavyweight title. To understand how remarkable that was, you have to remember where Roy had started. He had won his first world title at middleweight, at around 160 pounds. Ruiz was a heavyweight of more than 220 pounds, a strong, tough fighter who had held the title and beaten good opponents. No former middleweight champion had won a heavyweight title in more than a hundred years, since Bob Fitzsimmons in the 1890s. Most people thought Roy was taking a huge risk, and some thought he was making a mistake.
Roy prepared carefully, putting on weight in a controlled way, working on his strength without losing his speed. On the night, in Las Vegas, he fought a clever, disciplined fight. He used his speed to land punches and move away before Ruiz could catch him, he stayed out of the clinches where Ruiz was strongest, and he won a clear decision on the judges’ cards. When the result was announced, Roy had done what many people had thought was impossible. He was a four-weight world champion, from middleweight to heavyweight, and he had joined a very small group of fighters in history who had won titles in four divisions. The win made him the pound-for-pound king of boxing beyond any argument, and it remains the achievement for which he is most remembered.
The heavyweight win also showed Roy’s ambition. He was not content to rule one division. He wanted to test himself in the hardest way possible, and he wanted to do something that would be remembered long after he retired. Winning a heavyweight title as a former middleweight is the kind of achievement that places a fighter in the history books, and Roy knew it. He had already been a great fighter. After Ruiz, he was a historic one. The victory also made him a lot of money, and it gave him a freedom that few fighters ever have: the freedom to choose his own path, to fight who he wanted, when he wanted, and to leave the sport on his own terms if he wished.
What happened next is one of the saddest parts of his story. After winning the heavyweight title, Roy gave up the belt and moved back down to light heavyweight to fight Tarver, losing a great deal of weight in a short time. Many people who know boxing believe that the weight loss, and the strain it put on his body, played a part in what happened in the Tarver rematch, when his reflexes, the very thing his whole style depended on, seemed to desert him. He had been Superman for a decade, and suddenly he was a man who could be hit, and hurt, like anyone else. The fall was fast, and it was painful to watch, because the same speed that had made him great was the thing that could not last forever.
The Long Goodbye After Tarver
After the knockout loss to Antonio Tarver in May 2004, Roy Jones Jr’s career changed in a way that was hard to watch. He lost again to Tarver in October 2005, this time on points, and in between he was knocked out by Glen Johnson, another light heavyweight, in a fight that ended with Roy lying flat on the canvas. Three losses in four fights, after a decade of almost total dominance, told the world that the great Roy Jones was gone. His reflexes had slowed, his chin, which had rarely been tested, was now being tested in every fight, and the style that had depended on speed no longer worked in the same way. He was still a skilled boxer, but he was no longer Superman, and the gap between what he had been and what he had become was painful for his fans to see.
Roy did not retire. He kept fighting, winning some fights and losing others, and he moved down and up in weight, searching for the form that had left him. He beat Jeff Lacy in 2009, he lost to Bernard Hopkins in a rematch in 2010, and he fought on into his forties and then into his fifties, taking fights in Russia, in the United States, and in other countries, against opponents who were often much younger. Many people in boxing begged him to stop, and many wrote articles saying that he was damaging his health and his legacy. Roy kept going, and he has said that he loved boxing too much to walk away, and that the ring was the place where he felt most himself. That is a hard thing to argue with, even when you wish the person would listen.
In 2020, at the age of fifty-one, Roy fought Mike Tyson in an exhibition bout in Los Angeles, a meeting of two of the most famous boxers of their generation. The fight was an exhibition, not a real contest, and it ended in a draw, but it drew a huge audience, because people wanted to see two legends together in the ring one more time. Roy also fought on in professional bouts after that, and his last professional fight came in April 2023, when he lost on points to Anthony Pettis, a former UFC champion, in Milwaukee. He was fifty-four years old. The result mattered less than the fact that he was still there, still fighting, still unwilling to let the sport go.
Roy’s later years in boxing have also included work as a trainer and as a television commentator, where his knowledge of the sport shines through. He has trained fighters, including the Russian heavyweight, and he has spoken about boxing with a depth that only a great fighter can offer. He understands the sport from the inside, and when he talks about footwork, about timing, and about reading an opponent, people listen, because he did those things better than almost anyone who has ever lived. That work may prove to be his most lasting contribution after his fighting days are finally over.
Music, Film, and Life Beyond the Ring
Roy Jones Jr has always been more than a boxer, and his life outside the ring has been busy and varied. He recorded rap music under the name Roy Jones Jr, releasing albums and singles that reflected his personality and his love of performance. His music was not a side project that he took lightly. He took it seriously, and he performed with the same confidence that he showed in the ring. Some critics were kind, and some were not, but Roy did not seem to care. He liked making music, and he liked the freedom it gave him to express himself in a way that boxing did not allow.
He also appeared in films and on television, including a role in The Matrix Reloaded, where his presence added to the film’s cast of strong, memorable characters. He worked as a boxing commentator for major networks, and his commentary was known for its insight and its honesty. He would say when a fighter was making a mistake, he would explain what a champion should do next, and he would do it in a way that ordinary fans could understand. That work kept him close to the sport, and it gave him a second career that many fighters never find.
Roy has also been a father, and he has spoken about his children and about the importance of family. His relationship with his own father was complicated, and he has been open about the toughness of his upbringing, but he has also spoken about wanting to be a good father himself. That part of his life is less public than his boxing, and that is as it should be. The public saw the fighter, the showman, and the commentator. The private man, the father and the son, has lived a quieter life, and the full story of that life belongs to him and to his family.
In recent years, Roy has received the honours that great fighters receive. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2022, a recognition that his career, taken as a whole, places him among the greatest boxers of all time. The induction was a moment of pride, and it gave the sport a chance to celebrate what Roy had achieved at his best, rather than only remembering the long years after his peak. He remains a beloved figure in Pensacola, and in boxing gyms around the world, young fighters still study his fights, trying to learn how he moved, how he punched, and how he made the hardest sport in the world look easy.
Why Roy Jones Jr Still Matters
Roy Jones Jr matters because he showed what boxing could look like when a fighter had speed that no one else possessed. Before Roy, most great fighters won by being strong, or tough, or clever. Roy won by being fast, and he changed the way people thought about what a boxer could do. He fought with his hands down, he threw punches from impossible angles, and he made the best fighters of his generation look slow. Young fighters who watched him tried to copy his style, and most of them failed, because the style depended on a gift that cannot be taught. But the attempt changed boxing, and the sport is more exciting because Roy showed what was possible.
He also matters because of what he achieved across the weights. Winning titles from middleweight to heavyweight is a feat that may never be repeated, and it places him in a category of his own. The Ruiz win in 2003 is the single achievement that defines his career, and it is the one that historians will point to when they argue about where he belongs among the greats. He was not only a great middleweight, or a great light heavyweight. He was a great fighter, full stop, and the heavyweight title proved it in a way that no other win could have done.
Finally, Roy matters because his story is a warning as well as an inspiration. The long years after Tarver, when he kept fighting long past his prime, show how hard it is for a great athlete to let go. The ring gives a fighter a purpose, a crowd, and a sense of who he is, and ordinary life can feel empty without it. Roy’s refusal to retire is understandable, and it is also sad, because it cost him some of the shine of his prime. Yet even that part of his story teaches something. It teaches that greatness is not only about winning. It is also about knowing when to stop, and about finding a life beyond the thing that made you famous. Roy is still learning that lesson, and in a way, so are all of us who watched him.
My Take:
I have watched Roy Jones Jr fight on video many times, and I still cannot quite believe what I see. There is a moment in the James Toney fight where Roy drops his hands, leans back, and lets a punch pass his face by an inch, and then lands a counter that Toney never sees. I have watched that moment again and again, and each time I think the same thing: that is not normal. Human beings are not supposed to move like that. They are not supposed to see a punch coming, decide in a fraction of a second to move exactly the right amount, and then answer with a punch of their own. Roy did it as if it were easy, and that is what made him so special. He made the hardest sport in the world look like a game, and he made the best fighters of his generation look slow.
I think the first lesson in Roy’s life is about a gift, and about what a gift can and cannot do. Roy was born with speed that other fighters could only dream of. He had reflexes that made him seem almost superhuman, and he built a style around that gift that no one else could copy. But a gift is not a guarantee. It has to be trained, it has to be disciplined, and it has to be protected. Roy trained hard, and he listened to his father, and he worked at his craft. For a decade, the gift and the work came together perfectly, and the result was one of the great careers in boxing history. I think that is a lesson for anyone who has a talent. A talent on its own is not enough. It needs work, and it needs respect, and if you take it for granted, it will leave you sooner than you think.
The second lesson is harder, and it comes from Roy’s childhood. His father trained him with a hardness that Roy has spoken about honestly, and I do not want to pretend that part of the story is easy. A child should not be afraid of his father, and a child should not be punished in the name of training. At the same time, Roy has said that the toughness made him the fighter he became, and I believe him. That does not make the hardness right, and it does not make it wrong in a simple way. It makes it complicated, and I think we should be honest about that complication. Some of the greatest athletes in history were shaped by hard childhoods, and some of them carry the marks of those childhoods for the rest of their lives. Roy’s story reminds me that greatness often comes at a cost, and that the cost is not always paid by the athlete alone. It is paid by the child who had to become tough before he had a chance to be soft.
The Olympic final in Seoul in 1988 is the part of Roy’s story that makes me angriest, and I think it should make anyone who loves sport angry. Roy was clearly the better fighter. He landed more punches, he hurt his opponent, and everyone watching knew who had won. The judges gave the decision to the home fighter, and Roy went home with a silver medal that should have been gold. I think about how a nineteen-year-old deals with that. He has worked for years, he has fought his way to an Olympic final, he has done everything right, and then a group of judges takes it away from him. Some young men would have given up. Roy did not. He turned professional, and he fought with a hunger that came from that injustice. I admire that, and I also think it is sad that he had to learn so young that sport is not always fair. The lesson is not a happy one, but it is a true one: sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, and the only answer is to keep going and to win so clearly next time that no one can take it away from you.
The heavyweight title against John Ruiz is the achievement that I think about most, because it shows what ambition looks like when it is backed by real skill. Roy was a middleweight. He had no business fighting a heavyweight for a world title, and most people thought he was taking a foolish risk. But Roy understood his own gifts. He knew that his speed would still be there at heavyweight, and he knew that Ruiz, for all his size and strength, would not be able to catch him. He was right. He won clearly, and he did something that no fighter had done in more than a hundred years. I think that is the kind of achievement that defines a career. It is not only about winning. It is about daring to do something that other people think is impossible, and then doing it. I wish more athletes, and more people in general, had that kind of courage. Too many of us stay in the safe place, in the division we know, doing the things we are already good at. Roy left the safe place, and he became a legend because of it.
But I also have to be honest about the sad part of Roy’s story, and it is the part that stays with me longest. After the Tarver knockout in 2004, Roy kept fighting for almost twenty more years, and most of those years were not good. He lost fights he would once have won easily, he was knocked out in ways that were painful to watch, and he kept going long after everyone around him could see that his prime was over. I understand why he did it. The ring was his home, and boxing was the thing that made him who he was. Walking away from that is one of the hardest things a person can do. But I also think it cost him something. It cost him some of the shine of his great years, and it may have cost him his health. I do not say that to judge him. I say it because I think his story is a warning to all of us about the danger of holding on too long to something that has already given us its best. There is a time to fight, and there is a time to stop, and knowing the difference is a kind of wisdom that even the greatest fighters sometimes lack.
I also think about Roy’s work as a commentator and a trainer, and I am glad that he found a way to stay in boxing without taking punches. When he talks about boxing on television, you can hear the knowledge of a man who has done it at the highest level. He explains footwork, he explains timing, and he does it in a way that makes you see the sport more clearly. That is a gift too, and it is a gift that does not depend on reflexes. I hope he keeps doing that work, because it lets him share what he knows without risking his health. It also lets young fighters learn from him, and that may be the most important thing he does in the years ahead. A great fighter who becomes a great teacher can change the sport more than a great fighter who only fights.
If I had to choose one thing to remember about Roy Jones Jr, it would be the speed. Not the titles, not the heavyweight win, not the long career, but the speed itself, the way he moved, the way he saw punches coming, the way he made the impossible look easy. That speed is gone now, as all speed goes in the end. But the memory of it remains, in the videos, in the stories told by people who saw him live, and in the young fighters who still try to move the way he moved. Roy Jones Jr was Superman for a decade, and even though the cape has been put away, the legend remains. I think that is enough. A decade of greatness is more than most people ever get, and Roy earned every minute of it. I also think about the way Roy’s speed changed the sport itself. Before Roy, trainers taught young fighters to keep their hands up, to move in straight lines, and to throw punches in the textbook way. Roy broke every one of those rules, and he got away with it, because his reflexes were so fast that the textbook did not apply to him. Young fighters watched him and tried to copy him, and most of them failed, because they did not have his gift. But the attempt changed boxing. It made trainers think differently about speed, about movement, and about what a fighter could do if he trusted his reflexes. Roy did not only win fights. He expanded the idea of what a boxer could be, and that is a contribution that goes beyond any title.
There is also the question of money, and of what Roy did with his fame. He earned a great deal of money in his prime, and he spent a great deal of it, as many fighters do. He bought cars, he bought houses, and he lived the life of a star. He also invested in his music, in his films, and in his work as a commentator. I do not know the details of his finances, and I do not think it is my place to judge them. What I do know is that Roy’s career lasted for more than thirty years, from his professional debut in 1989 to his last fight in 2023, and that longevity is itself a kind of achievement. Most fighters are finished in ten years. Roy fought for three decades, and he did it because he loved the sport, not only because he needed the money. That love is real, and it is the reason he kept coming back, even when the world told him to stop.
I think about Roy’s father a great deal, and about the complicated relationship between them. Roy Sr was a hard man, and he trained his son in a hard way. Roy Jr has spoken about that hardness with honesty, and he has not tried to hide the pain it caused him. At the same time, he has said that the hardness made him tough, and that he would not have become the fighter he was without it. I do not think there is a simple answer to whether his father was right or wrong. I think there is only the truth that Roy lived: a childhood that was hard, a father who was strict, and a son who became one of the greatest fighters in history. That truth is complicated, and it should make us think carefully about how we raise children, about the difference between discipline and cruelty, and about the price that greatness sometimes exacts from the people who achieve it.
The Hall of Fame induction in 2022 was a moment that I think Roy deserved, and it was a moment that gave boxing a chance to celebrate him properly. He stood in Canastota, and he was recognised as one of the greatest fighters of all time, alongside the men he had beaten and the men who had beaten him. It was a proud moment, and it was also a moment of reflection, because Roy’s career was, by then, largely behind him. The speed was gone, the reflexes were gone, and the Superman cape had been put away. What remained was the record, the memories, and the respect of the sport. I think that is enough. A fighter does not need to fight forever to be great. He needs to have been great, once, and Roy was great for a decade, which is more than most fighters ever get.
Finally, I want to say something to young fighters who watch Roy’s fights and dream of moving the way he moved. Do not try to copy his style. His style depended on a gift that cannot be taught, and if you try to fight with your hands down without his reflexes, you will get hurt. What you can copy is his work ethic, his discipline, and his willingness to learn. Roy trained hard, he listened to his trainers, and he studied his opponents. He did not become great by accident. He became great by working at his craft, day after day, year after year. That is the part of his story that anyone can learn from, and it is the part that will help you, whether you become a champion or not. Speed fades, but work ethic lasts, and Roy Jones Jr, for all his gifts, was also one of the hardest workers in the sport.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Roy Jones Jr lose the 1988 Olympic final?
Roy dominated the light middleweight final against Park Si-hun of South Korea, landing far more punches, but the judges gave the decision to Park by three votes to two. The result is still widely seen as one of the worst decisions in Olympic boxing history, and it led to changes in Olympic scoring.
What made Roy Jones Jr so hard to hit?
His speed and reflexes were extraordinary, and he fought with his hands low, which let him see punches coming and slip them by a fraction. He could lean back from a punch and land a counter before his opponent could recover, a skill that depended on timing few fighters have ever matched.
How did Roy Jones Jr win a heavyweight title?
In March 2003 he moved up from light heavyweight and beat John Ruiz on points for the WBA heavyweight title. He had started his championship career at middleweight, so the win made him a four-weight champion and the first former middleweight to win a heavyweight title in over a hundred years.
Who beat Roy Jones Jr at the end of his prime?
Antonio Tarver knocked him out in the second round of their rematch in May 2004, after Roy had won a close decision in their first fight. Roy also lost by knockout to Glen Johnson later that year, and those defeats marked the end of his years as the best fighter in the world.
Did Roy Jones Jr fight Mike Tyson?
Yes, in November 2020 the two men met in an exhibition bout in Los Angeles when Roy was fifty-one and Tyson was fifty-four. The fight was an exhibition rather than a professional contest, and it ended in a draw, but it drew a huge audience.
Why did Roy Jones Jr keep fighting into his fifties?
He has said that he loved boxing too much to walk away, and that the ring was where he felt most himself. Many people in boxing urged him to retire, but he kept taking fights, and his last professional bout came in April 2023 when he lost on points to Anthony Pettis at the age of fifty-four.
