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November 1998
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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TREADING WATER
Roy Jones is back in action again, but his match against Otis Grant has a formality to it. GRAHAM HOUSTON reports |
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OTIS GRANT: part time social worker who got there the hard way, steps up another level
- Get Big Pic After getting dropped for the first time in his
career on the way to outpointing Lou Del Valle in July, Roy Jones comes right back against
another southpaw when he defends his World Boxing Council light-heavyweight title against
Jamaican-born Otis Grant, of Montreal, at Foxwoods casino, Connecticut, on 14 November. But the fight that the boxing fraternity was eagerly anticipating on this Home Box
Office-televised show, the rematch between Arturo Gatti and Ivan Robinson, will not now
take place. Gatti, who took heavy punishment when losing a split decision to Robinson in
August, is not 100% physically or mentally ready, his manager, Pat Lynch, says. This leaves us with Jones-Grant. And with respect to Grant, a capable professional,
this seems like just another of those formalities for the world's best (by more or less
universal acclaim) fighter. Even Grant's manager-trainer, Russ Anber, is not predicting a
win, taking a "We'll do our best" line. Grant holds the World Boxing Organisation middleweight title, which he won by
outpointing Ryan Rhodes at Sheffield last December, but the bout with Jones will be made
at catchweights - at 170lbs - 12st 2lbs - according to Jones's promoter, Murad Muhammad. A proposed fight between Jones and Graciano Rocchigiani fell out when the German with
the Italian name asked for money that HBO deemed unreasonable. Jones is the WBC's
"champion in recess" while Rocchigiani holds the "interim" title, but
WBC press officer John Brister said from Mississippi: "Rocchigiani is talking as if
he's the champion, which is not the case." But Rocchigiani's failure to agree terms gives Grant, who turns 31 in December, his
biggest purse. Grant, with a record of 31 wins, one loss and a draw in 33 fights (17 opponents
stopped) is one of those patient, low-key types who got there the hard way, winning
consistently. He was knocked out in the 12th and final round of a fight he was winning against Quincy
Taylor, the southpaw from Texas who later became world middleweight champ, in March 1994,
but says philosophically that it taught him he can never afford to lose concentration in
the ring. Grant built himself up as a contender with a series of fights on the now-defunct
Tuesday Night Fights series on American cable TV. He looked somewhat unlucky when the
judges scored his WBO title bout with Lonnie Bradley a draw in March, 1997, at Las Vegas.
But then Bradley suffered a detached retina, and Grant became champ at the second attempt
in his box-off with Rhodes. Against Jones, though, he steps up to another level entirely. Manager Russ Anber said
from Montreal: "I think it's safe to say it's going to be the toughest task we've
ever had, but we're going to try to give Jones the toughest fight he's had. What do I
think of Jones? He's brilliant. I'm not going to downplay him - that would be stupid. He
is the best in the world, pound-for-pound. He's a brilliant counter puncher, incredibly
fast, a hard puncher. But we've got things going for us as well. I think that Otis is a
thinking man's fighter, he's got good defence, he knows how to take care of himself in the
ring, he's a southpaw, and all these things will be an advantage to us. "I think it's going to be a chess match, and I'd like to keep it as much of a
chess match as possible, see if we can't outthink him and outmanoeuvre him, try to avoid
doing the things that would fall into Jones's forte, which would be to leave ourselves
vulnerable to counter punches, to be a sitting target for him, try to reach for him, to
fall for his feints and his little deceptive moves where he makes you come to him. I think
if we can stay away from some of those traps, we'll be okay." Anber said he does not read anything into the fact that Jones was dropped by Lou Del
Valle, nor does he feel the incident in any way detracts from Jones's ability. No, he
said, he did not learn anything from watching that fight, adding: "I've just got to
go on the artillery that we have within Otis Grant, and I have to work with that, because
Otis Grant is not Lou Del Valle, and Lou Del Valle is certainly not Otis Grant. I've been
in this game long enough to know that you can't necessarily judge a fighter by his last
outing. You have to look at the consistency of him, and I think Jones has proved to be as
consistent as they come." He is not worried about the fight being at a heavier weight, adding: "I think
that's one thing that will probably be to Otis's advantage. The '60 [160 lbs] has been
hard on Otis, especially lately, as he gets older, and with all the training that he does
he builds more and more muscle, even if he's not on a particular weight-building
programme, just by training you're going to develop muscle mass. Losing the extra weight
was just taking away from his muscle mass. Ten years ago he beat Egerton Marcus at 165
pounds [in the amateurs], so it's unbelievable he was able to make 160 [pounds] 10 years
later. At the beginning of his pro career he was a super middle. So I think that [the
weight] will be an advantage. "He loves the position of being an underdog, because everyone's going to be
expecting him to lose. This [fight] is the kind of thing you work for when you become a
pro fighter. Our goal was to win a world title. Well, we did that, and now you kind of
hope you can get involved in the money fights that are out there, and right now the money
fight for Otis Grant is Roy Jones." Anber said that he does not expect Grant to be overcome by the occasion or freeze when
the bell rings, saying: "You've got to remember, Otis and Roy Jones turned pro at
approximately the same time, in 1988, it's somebody that he could have conceivably fought
as an amateur, someone who comes from the same generation. He's a 30-year-old man, I don't
think he'll be awed by the fact that he's fighting Roy Jones - not at all." In fact, Grant might put up a better showing than generally expected. But we're talking
Roy Jones here, a superstar of the sport who has won world titles at three weights and who
likes to say he has never been beaten by an opponent in his 38 professional bouts: he in
effect beat himself by getting DQ'd for hitting Montell Griffin when his opponent was on
one knee, but the one-round blowout in the rematch emphatically showed Griffin what was
what. Jones is likely to out-everything his opponent (outspeed, outbox, outpunch) but that
does not mean that he will have things entirely his own way. Grant will not win, but he
can put up a respectable showing in defeat. |
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