Roy Jones Jnr, one of the all-time greats, has paid homage to the light-heavyweight legends who came before him.
Jones, who did some of his best work at 175lbs, said the super-competitive division of the late 1970s and early 1980s served as inspiration as he started making his way through the amateur ranks.
The light heavyweight class then was stacked, with Victor Galindez, James Scott, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Marvin Johnson, Dwight Muhammad Qawi, John Conteh, Mike Rossman, Yaqui Lopez and many more all fighting over the two world titles that were in existence at the time.
“That’s the class that I learned how to box from,” Jones told BoxingScene.
Jones would watch tape of them all and think, “How are they going to beat me?” and he would work out ways he would fight them.
“I knew everything about every one of them, Yaqui Lopez included,” Jones said. “I knew everything about Murray Sutherland. I knew everything about every one of them. Where do you think I got my little liver shot from? Eddie Mustafa. Where do you think I learned not to go try to take a guy late, just take him out early because he’s still dangerous late? Matthew Saad Muhammad. They beat Matthew Saad Mohammed for nine rounds. Ten, 11, 12, and there he come.
“James Scott, [he was] the guy that taught Dwight Qawi how to fight in the penitentiary [New Jersey’s Rahway State Prison]. Dwight Qawi got out, went back in the penitentiary and beat James Scott. I know. That was my school. That was my education class. That class you just talked about, that was my education class.
"I knew what all of them could do and what they couldn’t do. That’s what my goal was, to study what made one different than the rest, or what was it about that particular person that people wanted to see, because I need that. I want to be a guy who – one thing, whatever made people want to see all of them fight, whatever different thing it was – I wanted to put all of that in one Roy Jones Jnr. And that’s what I did.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, is on The Ring ratings panel and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
