. . . THE CBZ JOURNALTable of Contents
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. . . THE CBZ JOURNAL |
July 2001 Table of Contents |
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Blame Anyone Except Roy Jones Jr. by Steve Coughlin On July 28th, Roy Jones Jr. will defend his versions of the Light Heavyweight title against Julio Gonzalez and I will be watching. There are many reasons why this fight interests me. Among them are :
While I can understand the outrage that prompted the ROYCOTT, I will not blame Roy Jones Jr.for fighting the Rick Fraziers of the world any more. Ask yourself this question : If someone offered you $100 to carry a bag of ice up a staircase and $120 to carry the ice AND a refrigerator at the same time, which would you choose to do ? Now before you get started with the “integrity of carrying the refrigerator & doing it becauseall of the great ones in the past have”, let me ask you this second question : Would you EVER even THINK about carrying the refrigerator if one of your best friends died while doing it ? My point here is, why would ANY sane person risk their life when they don’t have to ? Look, I’m always bashing Roy for not fighting the opponents I want to see him fight. In fact, I don’t even consider him the true Light Heavyweight Champion. And YES, I feel he IS ducking Dariusz Michalczewski. But I will say that Roy’s a good business man. While he could make more fighting Bernard Hopkins or Dariusz Michalczewski, it wouldn’t be much more than he received for fighting Richard Frazier. So why should he risk everything when HBO lets him fight the Fraziers of the world ? And let’s not forget that Roy was a good friend of Grerald McClellan’s either. And that McClellan was supposed to ruin Nigel Benn. Don’t think that Roy will ever forget that. If the suits at HBO let him fight stiffs, they are the ones at fault. When it comes to other fighters, HBO will not allow even an undefeated world champion fight an HBO fighter if they feel their guy is just too talented for the champion. But with Roy there’s a double standard that HBO allows. They’ll let Roy fight just about anyone, including a New York cop who was a part-time fighter at best. Truth be told, HBO’s really lucky that Roy hasn’t killed one of these guys in the ring on one of their shows. So let’s stop playa hatin’ and cut the guy some slack. Until the promoters & networks offer him REAL money to fight Michalczewski or Hopkins/Trinidad blame HBO, not Roy. Other Stuff : Is there something in the drinking water in Sacramento, California ? First Diego Corrales, now Willy Jorrin. Stick to fighting men, tough guys! HBO KOs KO Nation. A truly bad idea from the start has now gone away. Hell, I thought it was better WITH Ed Lover. Johnny Tapia is ready for ANYONE at 122 or 126, and they ought to be worried. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that he’s one tough SOB. You’ve got to hand it to the WBA. They’re stripping Bones Adams for failing to make his required title defense against WBA #1 Yobert Ortega and choosing to fight WBA Bantam champ Paulie Ayala. Either they’ve found religion or Yobert’s got the best manager in the business. Looks like the real looser in the Heavyweight mess is now Hasim Rahman. First, he was scheduled to appear on the undercard of Ruiz – Holyfield III, now he may have to settle for a rematch with Lewis and for far less $$$ than he should. Does the name Tim Witherspoon mean anything to you Hasim ? Maybe you should give him a call & ask him about how well DK treated him. I’ve had enough of weight cutting. Let’s get back to the old way – weigh in to take place the day of the fight. Make someone who does that crap pay an EXTREME price, not the disciplined fighter who is at the weight. Beethavean Scottland, may you rest in peace. From the cheap seats, Steve Coughlin
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