The objective of boxing is to inflict damage, but also to not receive damage. There is no other sport like it, no other sport that produces such personality, confrontation, and such memorable affairs.
Muhammad Ali is remembered for being in at least 11 fights that will go down as some of the greatest of all-time, including three fights each with the late Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, and his shocking eighth-round KO of George Foreman.
Too often, we look too excessively at the professional side of the sport, and not where it all started.
Ali’s professional career began in 1960 following his gold medal at the Olympics in Rome but learned to box eight years prior in 1952, at the age of 12.
Ali said it prior to his diagnosis.
“I’ve been in the boxing ring for 30 years, and I’ve taken a lot of punches,” said the legendary fighter, “so there is a great possibility something could be wrong.”
It turns out, there was something wrong. Ali was experiencing tremors, slowness of movement, slurred speech, and fatigue.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1984, three years after his third and final retirement from the ring.
Most boxers do not become world champions and sadly, most individuals who choose to fight, have no other means of making an income; this is all they know how to do.
In 2011, Boxrec listed 17,883 boxers across the world. As of Wednesday, there are 82 world champions.
Although the number of boxers is probably higher than it was four years ago, using the old statistics would only have 0.4 percent of fighters becoming champion of the world.
Getting to the top is hard enough, but staying on the top, is even more arduous. The constant hours in the gym, the media following your every step, the impact of social media in today’s generation; it is a life not many would pursue freely.
The saying goes, “Boxing is life.”
And indubitably, there are fighters who become world champions and not just that, but some of the best the sport has ever seen.
Nothing more true can be said about Roy Jones Jr.
His accomplishments, simply outstanding, could possibly never be accomplished again.
Jones was a teenage boxing phenomena.
He ended his amateur career with a record of 121-13, won the 1984 United States Junior Olympics at 119 lbs at 15 years of age, and won the United States Golden Gloves competition two years later.
As a professional, Jones is the only boxer in history to start his career as a light-middleweight and go on to become the world heavyweight champion.
He defeated John Ruiz by unanimous decision in March 2003 to claim the WBA World heavyweight title.
But in 2004, one punch changed it all.
Leading up to his highly-anticipated rematch against Antonio Tarver, Jones’s record was an impressive 49-1 with 38 knockouts.
For the first time in his career, Jones was stopped with a ferocious counter left hand in just the second round.
Four months later, Jones gave it another go against Glen Johnson, but was knocked out; this time with a monstrous right hand in the ninth round.
It was recommended that Jones retire, but he kept fighting. Although he has won some fights, there have been notable falls along the way.
A first-round stoppage defeat to Danny Green, a brutal knockout loss against Denis Lebedev, and last Saturday, a fourth-round KO at the hands of Enzo Macarinelli.
And Jones is still considering fighting on.
Many are shocked, concerned that Jones could end up like Muhammad Ali, but why would one man take risk knowing this could happen, and with nothing more to prove.
This is all Jones knows how to do and a man has to do what a man has to do.
Sources say Jones has been strapped for cash for quite a while.
It is a sad, gloomy reality, and Jones is not the only fighter in the world going through this very dilemma.
He is one of many.
Boxing is not a game. It does not discriminate on the grounds of sentiment or concerns for others.
Like any war, it demands sacrifice from the weakest, and the spoils given to those least deserving.
– Ryan O’Hara @OHaraSports
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