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EPISODE: Episode 21
The Canadian heavyweight champ, Bola Ray, lends his vast experience in the sport and provides his comments and analysis on boxing on The Scoop, on YouTube and TalkinFight.com/live. #boxinghistory #askthechamp #thechampspeaks #boxingleague @royjonesjrofficial
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#boxer #boxing #boxingtalkshow
Transcribed:
Hello, there talking fight fans.
Thank you once again for joining us for another episode of the scoop featuring the champ boy, larae, how you doing tonight, champ uh, can’t complain.
You know just uh living the dream, like the rest of us awesome.
You know with that today.
In my continuing i’m continuing on in my ongoing series of greats that roy jones jr beat that made him in my eyes the greatest middleweight super middleweight and light heavyweight of all time.
The reality is that there are other fighters in history that have a more impressive record per se.
Well, not at the time of roy okay.
Roy was great, but would have amassed far more wins, but the question who did he be and who they beat now? That’S the question: that’s what makes you a champion at least actually a legend in my eyes, roy beat great actual legends full stop.
This is an opportunity for me to showcase just how many of these greats actually were, and today’s boxing kings is no different.
Today, i’m talking about a troubled youth, not like yesterday’s troubled youth, but just as troubled um.
He was no stranger to the streets or street fights from well before his teen years, um as a youth, a youth that his family grew up with, alongside literally alongside of floyd mayweather jr and buster matheson, a fighter who, in his 92 professional boxing fights, he only Had 10 losses and none of them came the way of stoppage.
He moved up from middleweight to heavyweight, never grew taller, just rounder stronger and never stop got stopped.
Who to make ends meet for a period of time, actually sold crack cocaine yeah? Why not? He is, he is genuinely one of my all-time favorite kings of the ring and is no other than my name is bola raymond, and this is the scoop born august 24th, 1968 in ann arbor, uh michigan was a tactically four-division world champion named james nathaniel tony mr Lights up to his opponents, tony was a star athlete and received multiple post-secondary school scholarship offers um for football in multiple positions.
That’S something that i have never well, i shouldn’t say never seen, but it’s actually rather rare.
Not only did he get the scholarships to multiple schools, but in multiple positions he was that much of an athlete but uh he is quoted.
As saying i wasn’t a team player, i wasn’t very good at taking orders, so i went into boxing, which only makes sense.
Tony had a brief but great amateur career, where he amassed 33 wins with 32 of them coming way of knockout and only two losses.
Then he had had enough.
I need to get paid so october.
26.
1988.
James steps into the squared circle as a professional against stephen lee, which ended up in a tackle knockout in the second round, and then a star was born from here for his next 46 fights.
He went undefeated with two draws, wow of which he avenged rather convincingly.
Like nobody stood in his way may 10 1991 james tony in his 27th fight.
He is now a 20 to 1 underdog underdog against michael second to none.
This sensation was walking into the ring with his for his seventh defense of his ibf uh middleweight strap.
There was some heated trash talking prior to their fight, like tony usually does tony angered, none with constant trash talk, and none promised that he was given gon na give him a beating.
I am going to punish.
Him is actually what he said.
I’M going to enjoy.
Punishing this guy again is actually what he said.
This was very much the case for the first five rounds and then, where none fought beautifully literally beautifully none, he was expected to run all night, but instead he stood a great deal and just oh boxed tony.
He would beat him from close quarters like he didn’t, wasn’t overly elusive.
He blocked a lot and just came back with a lot of punishment.
At the end of the fifth round, tony came back to his corner and told his his trainer he’s tiring.
I can hear him breathing like a freight train, i’m gon na step up the pressure and that he did by the seventh round.
None was her head on all three scorecards convincingly, but tony was getting to him and he was starting to tire.
It was visible how much he was tiring so by the 11th round, tony all, but lost his contest on points.
So none gets caught with a big left hook and dropped like a bad habit.
None makes the mike’s account only to endure more punishment, and that was just not necessary and he hits the canvas after the series of right hands.
The ref calls the fight.
The great michael nunn is now second to tony three fights later december, the 13th 1991.
This is exactly how often he was fighting right um from may to december.
He had three fights um tony decided to unify a unification fight with michael the body, slash body, snatcher mckellen for his idf strap and mike’s wba strap because mike had a mandatory challenger in steve collins for his wba strap.
He was actually stripped of his title and the fight was then just for tony’s ibf strat, a back and forth dance, which resulted in a draw four fights after that, these two legends are back at it and this time time, uh tony walks away with uh a W for his efforts, so two fights after that tony is back in the ring against another future hall of famer in iran, barkley, which he made look, may look easy and i haven’t watched that fight yet, but i sort of can see the styles clashing and i Can sort of see it because he is tony – is the master of inside fighting and counter punching? So barkley wasn’t overly elusive, he’s just balls the wall aggressive, so i could see it.
I could see it.
All.
Three judges gave barkley one round at the time of the stoppage in the ninth round.
It was a one-sided shellacking november 18th 1994 tony steps into the ring for his 47th dance against none other than our main man.
Roy jones jr ring magazine had tony ranked number.
Two for the pound for pound and had the man himself roy ranked number three coming into the fight.
Tony was known for struggling with his weight, but he always made weight.
So i’m not too sure why this was an issue, but he walked into camp 207 pounds and made weight at super middle at 167 pounds, so he dropped 40 pounds getting ready for this fight.
He went in and when he weighed in 167, the day before for the weigh-ins the following day when he walked into the ring, he was already 15 pounds heavier.
He was 182 pounds.
Um roy, in contrast, walked into the fight weighed in at 168.
Put on 10 pounds walked into the fight at 178.
.
Now the fight was a one-sided boxing lesson.
It was roy’s footwork made it made tonight, looked just easy because try as tony did to entice roy to actually stand in exchange.
He just wouldn’t.
There was a whole lot of heat a whole lot of talking going on prior to this fight.
There was a lot of bad blood.
Tony was gon na finish him and the genius that he is played beautifully, got him so riled up and so hot.
I just picked him apart from the outside.
This is what boxing is supposed to look like roy was playing with him and in the third round roy fainted, a big hook.
Okay, he didn’t throw it, he just threw it out there like just posed almost and then tony goes off and imitates him by posing only thing is as tony imitates him roy catches, tony with a quick left hook.
He stumbles back.
He lands on his ass knocked down.
All i can say is wow.
This is the great james, tony that’s being played with like a beginner.
That’S what i’m talking about! That’S! That’S! That’S what makes him great after the defeat of tony hour after this defeat, totally dusted himself off and moved up to light heavyweight to face against the man they call the mongoose montel griffin.
Actually, they call him ice.
His friend chris johnson calls him mongoose uh they’re fighting for the ibf strap at uh light heavyweight.
This was a jaw-dropping fight for me, because james tony by my assessment, was the greatest inside fighter going.
He easily montel beat him at his own game.
This definitely showed me cracks in his game.
Um james was a much taller longer reach and yet fought inside the pocket fought small and tried to counter punch against an even better counter.
Puncher, this olympic silver medalist, controversially counterpunch, like no other and [ Music ] james lost that fight.
I was slackjawed because i really didn’t follow montel prior to this now, once again, james goes back to the grindstone and amasses 10 straight uh fight, win streak, um and along the way he ends up picking up the boxing, the world boxing union light heavyweight title and Their cruiserweight strap too only to go up against the ice again and this time with my buddy edgarton marcus in the corner at the helm, it was more of the same and montel walked away with again another unanimous decision.
He just had his number but mind you.
These fights are seen as controversial and for the life of me.
I don’t understand why, because in watching it i i’ll be talking about montel.
Actually i think i can talk about them tomorrow and i’ll discuss these fights in greater detail.
To me it was.
It was clear james lost that fight lost both these fights and had a great deal of difficulty, adapting to the style, but we’ll see two and a half months later.
Tony is back in the office against his familiar foe in the body snatcher mike mccallum for the vacant, wbu cruiserweight title and he walks away with more hardware for his collection for his efforts um his very next fight, which is just under three months on may 14.
1997 was against drake fadzi uh for the international boxing organization, light heavyweight title, but tony came up short cayman.
You know sorry tony came into this fight four pounds, overweight, and i think this is the only time in his whole career that he came in overweight, even though, like i said he blows up in between fights um.
So only drake’s was fighting for the title because he didn’t make weight and he won it.
Drake beat him um.
The very next form uh, the very next month june 14th, he’s back in his office against facing steve little for the international boxing organization, cruiserweight title, and then he wins that, like honestly, the trophy that this guy must have in his house must be enormous but um.
He wanted now.
I don’t know if you are counting, but this cat in seven months lost a world title won another title: only to lose it again only to win another title in seven months: yeah that has to be a record of some sort in tony’s.
Next 16 fights he amasses a record of 14 wins one draw and one no contest against john ruiz, and in that story it was because yeah that was a heavyweight.
That’S when you went up to the heavyweight division, fought for a world title and got busted for performance, enhancing drugs yeah, but yeah by that time, tony was dancing with the big boys and he was in the heavyweight division, so he’s still 5 10.
.
This is the guy who’s 510 up 160 at one time and now is still 5 10 and he went up to as heavy as 240 pounds.
Wow um yeah, he told tony was a well.
He was.
He was a heavy boy from here on.
In tony’s career was nothing like it.
He had started um when he was great.
I still tip my hat to him because naturally, 510 middleweights moving up all the way up to dance with the big boys and more and more than that held his own on the world stage.
Like there’s not much, you can see much, not much.
You could say about the guy: the guy, the guy was able to get up to the big boys and literally hang with them and technically won a world title now.
Tony had some more notable names on his resume as victims such as bobby gunn, evander, holyfield and dominic quinn, but he did taste defeat twice against the nigerian nightmare: samuel peters and had a controversial, no contest against uh haseem rockman in their second contest, where, due to An accidental headbutt, um, haseem’s left eye had blood pouring down into it, and the fight was called by the third round in the rules dictate that within the first four rounds, if there’s an accidental headbutt, it has to be deemed accidental, though um that stop and the Fight has to stop the fight, never existed.
It’S it’s a no contest now, especially early in his career when he was a middleweight and even a light.
Heavyweight james was nothing shy of impressive uh.
Later in his career, he became a heavyweight.
He was reduced to more of a sideshow um, but he still was decent but more of a sideshow.
He did okay, but he looked a lot better in the lighter weights and he and weight classes.
This legend was handed his first defeat at the hands of the man, which is a testament for exactly how amazing roy truly was at midway and light heavy um.
I i can’t say enough about the very fact that he did what he did uh he showcased exactly the weakness in a guy who had 47 wins and no losses.
47 opponents couldn’t figure him out.
Roy did that’s my show folks and if you like, the show please hit the the like button and subscribe and don’t forget the notification bell.
It’S a boy bola and that’s the scoop.
Awesome show ray thanks very much and i guess we’ll see you tomorrow night that works
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