Canvas Or Hardwood? Super Middleweight Champ Roy Jones Jr. Contemplates His Boxing And Basketball Future

If Roy Jones Jr. is not the world’s greatest fighter already, then someone else out there is giving a pretty good imitation of Sugar Ray Robinson or Willie Pep or Muhammad Ali. And, actually, no one is, except Jones.

“He is the most naturally gifted fighter I’ve ever seen,” said Gil Clancy, the Hall of Fame trainer whose clients included Emile Griffith. “But can he stand the test of time?”

Or not get bored.

At this stage of a 30-0 career that includes 26 knockouts and the International Boxing Federation super middleweight championship, Roy Jones needs to prove his greatness in the right theater.

Thus, he is headlining at Madison Square Garden in New York Friday night. He moves up from, or at least out of, the 168-pound class to meet the light-heavyweight Merqui Sosa in a 10-rounder. A week later, he is going to England because, he said, a pro basketball league is interested in giving him a tryout.

Is he that bored with boxing?

“Yep,” he replied laconically. “The opposition is not equal to what I am.”

The other noted claimant to the mythical title of “world’s best fighter, pound for pound,” is the welterweight Pernell Whitaker. And Whitaker was defeated by Jones recently, although it was in basketball, at a charity affair, when Jones outscored him by 26-6.

Sometimes, Jones, who will be 27 next Monday, tries to keep himself amused in the ring by eschewing the jab, which is akin to a baseball player swinging the bat with one hand.

Or Jones, in the middle of a fight, might suddenly switch to a southpaw stance, a tactic he uncorked last March against Antoine Byrd, nailing him with a pair of straight lefts that were a prelude to a first-round knockout.

No one tells him what to do. When his father, who was also his trainer, tried, Jones simply fired him. Now, with basketball, he has this quirky idea that he can do well because he enjoys playing the game more than he enjoys boxing.

Jones, who stands 5-foot-11, plays point guard against friends at night in his hometown of Pensacola, Fla.

A few nights a week he also plays in a local league. He has no illusions that he is a National Basketball Association-caliber player, but he would like to find out just how good he might be and has had thoughts about the Continental Basketball Association, where some of his friends have played.

Given his celebrity status, he certainly could pick up the phone and call, say, Michael Jordan of the Bulls and ask his advice about trying to make it in two sports. But Jones hasn’t done so, and won’t.

“I’m the kind of person who wants to make it on his own. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time,” he explained.

His assessment of his basketball game? “I have to work on my turnover ratio. I’m a pretty good shooter, but I’m a better passer.”

When asked to compare basketball with boxing, Jones said basketball was “not quite as threatening.”

In fact, Jones was shaken recently when he saw a documentary television program detailing the mental decline of Jerry Quarry, the onetime heavyweight contender. And he is deeply affected by the condition of Gerald McClellan, who was blinded and brain-damaged as the result of his brutal fight with Nigel Benn last February.

“I’m fed up with danger,” Jones said. But he adds, “I owe it to my public to keep fighting.”

Clancy, meanwhile, marvels at what Jones does now. If the trainer has reservations about the fighter’s greatness, it is only about longevity.

“With only 30 fights, he can still look great,” Clancy said. “Robinson had 200, Pep had 230. What happens when he fights some more and he slows up a little?”

But Clancy sees no negatives in what Jones has accomplished. Some old-timers wonder what will happen when Jones gets nailed - as if it’s his fault that he hasn’t been hurt yet.

“The reason he hasn’t been hit is he’s so quick,” Clancy said. “He gets into his punching range and out of the other guy’s punching range fast. People don’t realize that. You’re attached to your arm. So when you hit a guy, you’re in his range. He’s not there long enough for the other guy to hit him.”

In Sosa, Jones is going up against a tough

opponent who can take a punch but whose legs probably will not be able to save him. Sosa is 26-4-2, with 22 knockouts.

Only a few months ago, Jones fantasized about taking on Mike Tyson. “I’m not concerned about hitting him,” Jones said then. “My concern is how will I react when he hits me.”

Now, Jones is giving up thoughts of becoming a heavyweight. “Not a chance,” he said when asked about Tyson. Yet, he has knocked down the world cruiserweight champion, Al (Ice) Cole, his 190-pound stablemate. Cole, in fact, said that particular sparring session with Jones was the hardest he was ever hit.

Jones has put aside that heavyweight fantasy. Then again, who knows how he’ll feel after Friday night, in his first test as a light-heavyweight? The prospect of putting on some more pounds could be more intriguing than playing basketball in a bus league.

He is not about to end a career to chase a dream. But if he is so inclined, Tim Witherspoon offered a warning. Witherspoon, 38, is a two-time former heavyweight champion who now claims he is ready to face the top guns again. He faces Cole on the undercard Friday night.

“I see what’s happened to Jones and I think about the past, because it happened to me,” Witherspoon said. “I won the championship and I won a lot of money. I was in the ozone and no one was there to tell you how to handle it.”

But Jones, to date, has remained well within himself. He even enters the ring to a recording of his own rap song.

“He can do just about anything,” Clancy said. “He’s like a young colt on the run. No one’s reined him yet.”