OLD HABITS DIE HARD

If anyone thought Roy Jones was starting to fade at age 33, his defence against Clinton Woods proved otherwise. GRAHAM HOUSTON reports from Portland, Oregon

From the moment he rose up on to a podium high up at the back of the arena in an entrance reminiscent of a stage production’s demon king, one thing was certain. Roy Jones Jr had come to put on a show. And Jones did just that as he outclassed and hammered Britain’s brave Clinton Woods before the merciful sixth-round stoppage at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon on 7 September.
This was Jones at his absolute best as performer and fighter. It was as if the light-heavyweight champ had decided to make one of his statements. Which meant, in essence, no mercy. And Woods, the 30-year-old from Sheffield, had the misfortune to be on the receiving end.
As Jones descended the steps to ring level, flanked by female dancers and shouting rap lyrics into one of those hands-free microphone attachments, he cut almost a demigod figure.
The words from his Round One CD were to prove, for Woods, chillingly appropriate: “Mr. Untouchable, Mr. Unstoppable, Mr. Unbeatable, Mr. Invincible.” Jones was all of these.
All right, Jones was meeting Clinton Woods, who although the World Boxing Council’s mandatory challenger did not stand a ghost of a chance. Anyone who knows anything about boxing knew that.
But what Jones showed was a level of artistry and imagination that was breathtaking.
Woods is a decent, earnest fighter with a good chin who would have been competitive with most of Jones’s previous 11 challengers (in two reigns as champion) and might have beaten a few of them — he certainly would have defeated the hapless Richard Frazier, and almost certainly the stage-struck Aussie Glenn Kelly.
So it was no surprise that Woods was overwhelmed by Jones’s superior, well, superior everything. 
But what made this performance special was that Jones revealed in a consistent way his full arsenal of punches — something he doesn’t always do. He even threw in a couple of moves you won’t find in any boxing textbook. All in all, Jones looked so good that even though he was dominant he turned what was always going to be a one-sided fight into an entertaining spectacle. 
Woods had come to fight; indeed he had come to win. And for two rounds he was at least in the fight. But then Jones took over completely.
Even allowing for the fact that this was little more than a glorified exhibition, one could look at Jones and imagine him giving history’s great light-heavyweight champs all sorts of problems.
He showed us what he can do when he really wants to do it. 
But the problem with Jones is that his acumen as a businessman gets in the way of his being involved in truly competitive fights.
This is where the traditionalists among us despair of Jones.
In the past, the top fighters wanted to meet their rivals to see who was superior. 
There was a genuine sense of wanting to prove they were the best.
Jones does not think this way.
In his own mind, he is the world’s greatest fighter and has nothing to prove.
His contract with the Home Box Office television colossus allows him to meet mandatory challengers such as Clinton Woods for almost as much money as he would get for meeting a Dariusz Michalczewski or a Vassiliy Jirov. 
In essence, Jones is saying he would be a fool to go to Germany to meet Michalczewski or to face the 15lbs heavier Jirov when, for not that much less remuneration, he can have fun against the likes of Glenn Kelly and Clinton Woods.
But by taking this attitude, Jones gives the impression that he is ducking the real challenges.
From the purely financial and business side of things, no one can fault Jones. 
Those of us who remember the champions who fought everyone and took on great challenges, would like to see Jones do the same. But then, those fighters did not have the HBO contract that Jones negotiated for himself.
And so, Jones declines to take risks. And boxing fans get more of the same: The No. 1 challengers are lined up, and Jones eliminates them. So it goes, and so it went with Clinton Woods.
At least Woods had a go. He was never off his feet. He did as well as anyone could reasonably have expected. But Jones was on another level. 
For two rounds, we actually had a fight. Woods was landing some punches as he forced Jones to the ropes. There was even a slight swelling over Jones’s right eye. But every time Jones landed a right hand or a left hook the difference in power was brutally obvious. 
Woods raised his right glove to his tiny but vocal group of British supporters as he headed back to his corner at the end of round two, but I had the uneasy thought that, while the challenger was giving it all he had, Jones had not yet begun to fight in earnest.
Still, Woods wasn’t done yet. The crowd of 16,229 roared as Jones was forced to fight with his back to the ropes in the third. But even though Woods was throwing both hands, Jones was doing the real damage with his left uppercuts and hooks, causing the taller British boxer to back off. 
And from this point on, Jones seemed to ratchet up his performance to a new level. His big hooks and right hands had Woods looking disorientated, and just before the bell to end the third a left hook to the body almost doubled the challenger over. Woods was unable to disguise his distress. Saved by the bell, he couldn’t straighten up as he walked back to his corner. It was now apparent to me, from my ringside position, that this was just going to be a matter of time.
But, to his credit, Woods hung in there for almost another three rounds.
In the fourth Jones showed us a move inspired by the fighting cocks he raises in Pensacola, Florida, as he closed in with exaggerated steps and moved his head back and forth in the rooster manner.
Woods, now cut between the eyes, took such a lot of clean punches in the fourth that all three judges made this a 10-8 round in Jones’s favour even though the challenger had not gone down.
At the end of the round Woods tapped the champ on his washboard midsection in a forlorn, sad acknowledgement of: “You’re the man.”
In the fifth a left hook from Woods merely brought a smile from Jones. Then Jones’s dipped into his bag of tricks again as he lifted his right leg, tapped his foot with his right glove and then launched a huge uppercut with the same hand, all in the blink of an eye. The punch missed but the manner of the attempt was noisily appreciated by the throng. Woods mimicked the champ by tapping his own foot, but defiance was just about all he had left.
Jones went straight after his man in the sixth, and the big shots from each hand had Woods going back on unsteady legs, his nose streaming blood. The challenger’s manager, Dennis Hobson, had seen enough and got up on the ring apron waving a white towel to signify surrender to Las Vegas ref Jay Nady, who waved the finish after 89 seconds of the round.
Afterwards, Jones said he hadn’t underestimated Woods and had worked hard for 10 weeks to get ready for the fight. As the champion, he said, it’s his job to meet the No. 1 contenders for his three major titles (WBC, World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation), while not ruling out a bout with WBA heavyweight champ John Ruiz.
So Jones’s next opponent will be either the IBF’s No. 1 light-heavyweight challenger, Antonio Tarver, who was at ringside, or Ruiz, with the situation unclear at time of writing. 
Tarver, a hard-punching southpaw fresh from his blast-out of Eric Harding, has to be considered a serious test, even though Jones would be a big favorite.
“Whoever comes my way, I’m always ready for them,” Jones said. Then, in what seemed a sly dig at middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins, he added: “People who tell you: ‘Roy Jones won’t fight this, Roy Jones won’t fight that,’ don’t believe the hype.”
Woods said it was an honor to have been in the ring with Jones. “He’s a great fighter; he gave me a tremendous beating in the last couple of rounds,” he said. “But I’m still smiling.”
Jones was smiling, too. At 33, he looks as good now as he has ever done. He is clearly in a class of his own at light-heavyweight — although, that said, he might not have things all his own way with Antonio Tarver — and he obviously still enjoys his boxing. 
And let’s face it, after another easy night’s work, why wouldn’t he? 

* Additional coverage appears in the current issue

Holy's rebirth as a viable contender ran parallel to the reopening of the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall, which, at 73 years old, was grateful for a $90 million renovation. With a capacity of 13,800 (9,831 attended Holy-Rock), the Hall is the only venue in the resort city big enough to host major fight cards. (Holyfield-Foreman and Tyson-Michael Spinks, for example.) Add the fact that Don King, Bob Arum, and Cedric Kushner are all once again licensed to promote in New Jersey, and after a 21/2-year layoff, the AC is most definitely in play once more. 

If Holy has nine lives, why can't the Atlantic Ocean make a comeback? Think of all the saltwater taffy and 99-cent t-shirts you can bring home to your loved ones.

Among the questions that were to be answered by Holy-Rock: Was Evander's frustration and failure vs Ruiz due to the latter's infuriatingly awkward style, as Holyfield maintains, or was "The Real Deal" really shot? Rahman was a fitting foe, fuelled by desperation as well. Coming off a KO loss to Lewis in November, he had changed trainers, from Adrian Davis to Bouie Fisher (formerly the longtime trainer of Bernard Hopkins). Adding to the mystery of what was hiding under The Rock, he scaled 224lbs (16 stone), 14 pounds less than he weighed for his KO of Lewis in April 2001, and his lightest in six years. 

Rahman's explanation: The elimination of cheese from his diet. Gouda for him. 

And in case anyone misunderstood the meaning of the fight, Rock summed it up: "If one of us wins decisively, I think they can't deny us a title shot."

  Holyfield, 216lbs (15st 6lbs), from Atlanta, Georgia, opened by bouncing in rhythm, but within a minute or so, he was flatfooted. The 29-year-old Rahman, from Baltimore, Maryland, stood his ground, but rationed his jab, which is his primary weapon. Worse yet, he frequently bent at the waist, and Holyfield, whose experience allows him to adjust, changed the plane of his punches to meet the lower target. 

"Get that jab working and you're home free," Fisher told Rahman after an uneventful first round. But Holyfield is a master at neutralising his opponent's strength, and as he did in his rematch vs Lewis, he rendered Rock's jab virtually useless by slipping the blow or countering with heavy hooks. 

The second round was Holy's by a narrow margin; he scored with a hook and a one-two. More significantly, Rock began falling in after punching, which minimised his offensive effectiveness. A good in-fighter must feature a left hook, and that punch is largely missing from Rock's repertoire.

  "Holyfield is so shifty," Fisher said, "that he was pulling Rock in. Rock didn't have his balance so it looked like he was falling in." 

The wrestling and clinching that accompanied the chest-to-chest combat enabled Holy to control the pace. At 39, he is no longer equipped to fight three hard minutes per round. (For that matter, most young heavyweights are no different.) Rock later said his plan was to accelerate in the second half of the bout. Since the second half was reduced to four minutes and 40 seconds of action, we'll never know whether his strategy could have been a winning one. 

The first sign that butts, unintentional or otherwise, would be a factor came in the third, when Rock shifted his head from side to side during clinches. "There were some vicious head butts from the beginning of the fight," Rock complained. "He cut me with a butt in the second round. I didn't feel he was doing anything dominating. I was never hurt or anything. The head butts took me out of the fight." 

Rock, Lewis, Tyson, and Ruiz can't all be wrong; Holyfield's hairless head serves as a third fist. It seems he doesn't butt intentionally - but doesn't try not to butt either. He's indifferent about the position of his head at close range, and whether that's tantamount to intentionally butting . . . Well, he'll never say. 

"My whole boxing career, you get into position first," Holyfield explained. "The ref said: 'Keep your head up,' but a good fighter keeps his head down because if you don't, you get your head knocked off." 

Early in the fourth, Holyfield butted Rahman in the middle of the face. Rock responded with a right to the head, his best punch to that point. But Holy stepped away from the ropes and later scored with jabs and hooks to the body. He won the round, and Rock returned to his corner bleeding from a cut at the inside corner of his left brow. 

Staying close to his man, Rock smothered his own power. He did manage, however, to connect with a pair of rights late in the fifth, which were enough to shade the round. Third man Tony Orlando warned Holy for reckless use of his head but didn't deduct any points. 

"You should have the ref here," Fisher said at the postfight press conference, "and ask him why he kept saying: 'I'm gonna take a point, I'm gonna take a point.' [Holyfield] knows all the tricks and knows how to fight. Were the butts unintentional? When they happen three, four, five times in a fight . . . " 

This was a rather tame bout, and it wasn't until round six that a knockdown or stoppage seemed even a remote possibility. Thirty seconds in, Holyfield, 38-5-2 (25 KOs), stunned Rahman, 35-4 (29 KOs), with a hook and left uppercut. Rock backed to the ropes and held. He stuck to Holy for the remainder of the round, and when he punched, his hooks and crosses were unthreatening. Was this the same puncher who KO'd Lennox Lewis with one shot? From start to finish, Rahman fought a poorly planned fight. 

In the seventh, Holyfield again exploded with a flurry Ñ and with his third fist. With 40 seconds remaining, Rock showed a bump on the left side of his head. By the round's end, he was suffering from a severe haematoma, and the swelling was the size of, well, a rock. A large rock. He resembled an extra from an episode of Star Trek. 

Between rounds, cutman extraordinaire Miguel Diaz pushed hard with his Enswell in an attempt to flatten and spread the collection of blood. He would have been better served by the larger surface of an icebag. No matter; at the start of the eighth, Rock had two heads, and his body language suggested both of them were telling him he was a beaten man. 

Asked afterwards if he would do anything different, Rock answered: "Yeah, wear a helmet." (After watching a tape of the fight, Team Rock claimed Holy butted Rahman 16 times.) 

Holy raged in the eighth until Orlando called time out one minute, 40 seconds into the round. When Dr Dominic Coletta asked Rock if he could see, the heavyweight said his vision was blurry. The bout was immediately waved off and the scorecards were summoned. 

"He must have a metal plate in his head," Rock said of Holyfield. "I've never seen anybody do this much damage with a punch, let alone their head. I think the fight is not over. I don't feel like he beat me. The result should have been, 'To be continued'. 

"You're all talking about how well Evander fought. The tapes show this was inconclusive. When I looked at Evander between rounds and even during the fight, he was breathing hard. I felt I was gonna stop him in the later rounds." 

"I have seen shots that land very close to the temple do that," countered Holy. "All of the rights were hitting his temple, and he didn't keep his hands up." 

If the ending was unsatisfying, so was the scoring, with John Stewart and Steve Weisfeld both favoring Holy by 69-64 and Melvina Lathan inexplicably going for Rock by 67-66. Boxing Monthly had Holy ahead by 68-65. 

"Don't tell me God can't revive a 39-year-old man," said Don King, who promotes Holyfield. "God did it with Abraham, and he was 100." 

For the record, the swelling on Rock's head actually grew worse after the fight. "It got bigger and it spread," reported Stan Hoffman, Rahman's manager. "His eye blew up like a golf ball and the whole side of his face looked terrible. It's just now starting to go down [five days after the fight].

"In Holyfield's celebratory dressing room, someone kept shouting, "Five-time!" Whether Holy can win even a portion of the world title again remains problematic. But one thing's for sure: His win over Rock moved him much closer to yet another opportunity. He will now be ranked first by the WBC, which all but guarantees him a mandatory shot. And he's listed second by the WBA, behind mandatory challenger Kirk Johnson, who is scheduled to face Ruiz in July (previewed in this issue).

I've covered Holyfield since his pro debut at Madison Square Garden in 1984, and his career defies logic. What George Foreman accomplished at age 45, winning the world title with one punch, was indeed miraculous, but Big George had spent 10 years on the shelf. Holy, on the other hand, has never rested his body. There have been several wicked wars, many coming against much bigger fighters. And while he doesn't train with the intensity that marked his prime, you'd think his body would've given out years ago. 

You can talk hooks, jabs, and crosses all you want, but Holy's greatness is best explained by extraordinary mental toughness. For whatever reason, or for a multitude of reasons, that's not an attribute shared by too many of today's top boxers, heavyweight or otherwise. 

A young man's game? The old man still believes he can do it. And you know what? If you doubt him, you'll have to tell him yourself. I've decided to cut my losses by shutting up.