Jones Adds to Highlight Reel with Win Over Lacy

Results

Roy “Captain Hook” Jones Jr. rode out of “Hook City” the big winner as he annihilated Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy for ten brutally one-sided rounds, becoming the first man to stop Lacy when Jeff’s corner saved him before round eleven.

But just how big of a win was it?

From the outset, “Hook City” was largely considered meaningless in the grand scheme of all things boxing. Jones and Lacy are far past their best, both of them having been dominated by opponents within the last year, and neither were looked at as major players, even in the vapid light heavyweight division.

Both Lacy and Jones are from Florida, so logic says stage the fight there in front of their real fans. Instead, it ended up in Biloxi, Mississippi, which has become Roy’s second hometown, especially in recent years, probably to make Jones the solid crowd favorite. The bout also became a joke among boxing insiders when Jones showed up to the press conference dressed as Captain Hook from Peter Pan. Billing it “Hook City” didn’t make much sense either as neither man had scored a real knockout in years.

Lacy entered first, making his first appearance as a light heavyweight – a weight class Roy had dominated for the last decade. Advantage Jones yet again. Just in case he wasn’t already in Lacy’s head, Jones had one more ploy: the classic stall. After making Lacy wait an excruciatingly long time in the ring, Jones finally appeared, thankfully without the Captain Hook garb.

To no one’s surprise, Roy got off the first left hook of the fight while stifling Lacy with his jab in round one. Not even a minute in, Jones already noted the mismatch in hand speed and was comfortable enough to drop his hands below his waist and stare Lacy down, letting off shots whenever he saw fit. With both hands on his knees, he drilled Lacy with a right hand and proceeded to dance in the center of the ring. The Roy Jones highlight real was on.

Keeping the gloves down, Roy pulled off any shots from Lacy while tagging him with clean counter hooks of his own. After being nailed repeatedly, Lacy finally began rushing Jones – a tactic most experts realized he had to do from the opening bell of every round if he wanted to win. He did manage to land some body shots but missed with some wide power shots. Roy scored with some hard body punches in return and blocked just about everything Lacy threw.

Lacy pressed early in round two, albeit ineffectively, and ended up taking a left hook to the body, followed by one to the head. Jones then rattled off a six-punch combination, and Lacy responded by taking a step back and shaking his head. Jones went back to doubling up the left hook to the head and body, one time clearly buckling Lacy with a body shot. Another shot strayed low and drew a protest from Lacy, to which Roy said, “My bad.”

When pressing again to start round three, Lacy found success to the body but couldn’t land upstairs, instead eating several left hooks. Two hard uppercuts lifted Lacy’s head, but he stayed in close and kept punching at Roy’s body. Jones fired eight unanswered punches as Lacy had no choice but to back off to avoid more punishment. He was cut over the right eye and spent much of the rest of the round hanging onto Jones, who kept turning to the crowd and yelling, “Not yet! Not yet!” as though he was planning when to stop Lacy. And it was clear there would be a stoppage at the rate Lacy was being punished. He absorbed several more hard uppercuts and only managed to land his left hook when a dancing Jones dropped his gloves. Unfortunately for Lacy, Roy saw the punch coming and took it well.

Early in round four, Jones recognized someone in the crowd, pointed his glove and had a brief conversation, completely at ease with the situation in the ring. Poor Lacy whiffed on a big shot, allowing Jones to get one more word in with the person. Keeping his distance from Jones, Lacy started eating lefts and rights literally left and right and looked flat out exhausted as he dropped his gloves and followed Roy around. Jones simply pivoted on his back leg and drilled him with a straight right hand.

A left hook late in the round doubled Lacy over, and Jones immediately jumped on him with combinations, beating Lacy into a corner of the ring but failing to put him down or out. Roy put a hand on his hip and stared down the crowd after the bell as though he should be locked up for the beating he was delivering. A merciful corner would have pulled Lacy out then, and Referee Keith Hughes had to be considering stopping the fight himself. Lacy was being humiliated and seriously hurt at the same time. Through four rounds, he had never been so punished in his career, not against Jermain Taylor, not against Joe Calzaghe.

Lacy gave a strong effort in round five but ended up being pummeled worse than ever before, at one point taking four left hooks in a row and responding with a shrug. He couldn’t do much else. Four more followed later, and it looked like Roy only needed to launch one committed assault to get his man out of there. He gave just that, throwing a baffling 16 punches in three seconds, but Lacy stepped back and beckoned Roy on for more. He wasn’t planning on exiting early.

Jones spent round six landing a few punches, sticking out his tongue, landing a few more and sticking his tongue out, having fun with the crowd. With Lacy trying his hardest, Roy continued talking to fans, telling them to watch before he punched and avoiding hooks while looking away. It was hard to say which was more exciting, watching Roy talk to the fans or box.

The longer the fight went on, the more it became evident that Roy’s theatrics were the only way to keep anyone interested. The bout wasn’t competitive, and Roy wasn’t hurting Lacy enough with single shots to knock him out, but the accumulated damage more than warranted a stoppage. In the eighth round, he buckled Lacy’s knees with another body shot and sent Lacy back to his corner with two swollen eyes.

A round of uppercuts hurt Lacy bad in round nine, causing him to stumble all the way across the ring as one of his legs went. Still, Roy couldn’t finish the deal, so Lacy’s corner decided it was time to talk it over with him, Lacy saying he wanted to continue. For some bizarre reason, they gave Lacy his wish and sent him out again.

Even the fans thought letting Lacy fight on was nonsense at that point, chanting, “Knock him out” to Roy, but Roy was always a better dancer than a finisher. He demonstrated that by waltzing with Lacy in round ten and jumping up into him with cartoonish uppercuts to delight the crowd. Later, Jones hurt Lacy for real with a big counter right hand, and, while Lacy backed up, clearly ready to be stopped, Jones stopped himself and pointed his glove at the crowd to make sure the fans had seen it. Jones scored with several more left hooks to end the round.

Maybe Jones was trying to be compassionate, but he was doing Lacy more long-term damage for sure by dragging the fight out. Since he couldn’t, or wouldn’t end the fight himself, the corner finally risked their future with Lacy and pulled the plug on the fight. It was a disgrace on their part and on the part of Hughes for not stopping it at least three rounds earlier. This wasn’t Calzaghe’s pitter-patter shots for ten rounds. It was the powerful blasts of a man who carried his punch up with him through three weight classes and over 25 pounds over his career.

Now 40 years old, Jones still has no intention of retiring and is planning a fight with cruiserweight Danny Green, who scored a fifth round knockout over Julio Cesar Dominguez on the undercard. It appears that fight will head to Green’s home country of Australia with what already looks to be another fun promotion as Roy spent his post-fight interview joking with Green about the culture down under.

And that’s key. Because if Roy is still fighting to have fun and make money, that’s all right. He should definitely fight Green if that’s the case, and he’ll definitely have an audience when he does based on his highlight reel performance against Lacy.

But once the “Roy is back” talk starts, that’s where the problem begins. Roy Jones Jr., no matter how good he looked against Lacy, is not back. Lacy was never equipped to handle with superb hand speed as was the case when he fought Calzaghe. And truthfully, he’s never looked even half of what he was pre-Calzaghe since that fight. Shoulder surgery has certainly hindered Lacy’s career as well. He was, simply put, the perfect opponent for Roy to look like his old self against: a smaller (career super middleweight), plodding fighter with a big punch but no hope of ever landing it.

Boxing fans have fallen for Roy’s act far too many times before. When he was knocked out by Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson back to back in 2004, he announced he was back only to run away from Tarver for twelve rounds in the next fight in 2005. When he beat Felix Trinidad last year, he again announced he was back only to be absolutely dominated by Calzaghe in a fight he never appeared to even try to win. Jones does not have the heart to compete against top level fighters anymore, and boxing fans should know by now not to pay for it if he signs to fight one.

If it’s the old Roy fans want to see, they’ll get him as long as he fights B level fighters and below. But he’s not stepping into the ring against a top fighter and looking as strong as he did tonight against a largely faded, if not shot, super middleweight who was just dominated in his last fight, though certainly not this bad.