Glen Johnson vs Roy Jones Jr

Road warrior Glen Johnson retained the IBF light-heavyweight championship by knocking out Roy Jones Jr after 48 seconds of the ninth round at the FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee, on September 25, 2004. Johnson weighed 174lb and Jones 175lb for the scheduled 12-round contest, refereed by Bill Clancy. Jones entered as a 6-1 favourite despite having been knocked out by Antonio Tarver four months earlier. Johnson, whose record stood at 40 victories, nine defeats and two draws, was making the first defence of the IBF title. Approximately 14,000 spectators attended, while Jones received a purse of $3 million and Johnson $700,000.

Johnson established the pattern from the opening bell. Rather than give Jones the distance and time upon which much of his earlier brilliance had depended, he moved forward steadily, worked behind a high guard and made the former champion fight close to the ropes. Jones still possessed enough speed to score with quick single punches, but he was spending too much time reacting rather than initiating. Johnson was willing to take a shot to continue advancing and concentrated heavily on the body whenever Jones tried to settle against the ropes. He was not attempting to match Jones for speed. His purpose was to deny him room, keep him occupied and force him to work continuously.

The second followed a similar course. Johnson kept closing the distance and made Jones fight at a pace which appeared uncomfortable. Jones showed flashes of his former sharpness in the third, producing brief bursts of fast punches, but he was unable to discourage the champion. His best spell came during the fourth, when a quick combination brought the crowd firmly onto his side, yet Johnson resumed his advance as soon as the exchange ended. The Jamaican-born champion remained compact and persistent, repeatedly forcing Jones backwards and making him fight from positions in which he could not easily use his reflexes to create counter-punching opportunities.

The fifth was more competitive, with both men having periods of success, but Johnson continued to dictate where most of the action took place. Jones threw fewer punches and increasingly relied on single counters. Johnson, by contrast, kept working the body and then brought the right hand over the top. The sixth and seventh contained fewer clean combinations but followed the same tactical line. Jones occasionally produced a quick lead or counter, yet Johnson remained the aggressor and kept reducing the ring. At ringside after seven rounds, veteran observer Bert Sugar had Johnson ahead by five rounds to two, which closely reflected the official scoring then developing.

By the eighth, Jones was showing signs of fatigue. He still retained enough speed to make Johnson miss occasionally, but the effortless movement which had characterised his best years was absent. He spent long stretches near the ropes, where Johnson could work without having to pursue him across the ring. The champion’s punches were not always clean, but his activity and pressure were producing the greater effect. After eight rounds, judges Fred Steinwinder III and Dan McLellan each had Johnson leading 77-75, while Gerald Deming had him farther ahead at 78-74. Jones therefore entered the ninth needing to change the direction of a contest which was already slipping away.

The ending came almost immediately. Early in the ninth, Jones was caught flat-footed as Johnson came forward. Contemporary accounts describe Johnson landing an overhand right followed by a short left. Jones toppled backwards and struck the canvas heavily. Clancy did not need to complete a count. Jones lay flat on his back, scarcely moving, and the fight was stopped after 48 seconds. He remained on the canvas for several minutes while trainers and medical personnel attended to him, placing ice beneath his head. He eventually sat on a stool and, after approximately 15 minutes, left the ring with assistance before being taken by ambulance to hospital for examination. No serious injury was subsequently reported.

The knockout was dramatic, but Johnson’s victory had been taking shape long before the final punch. According to the official punch statistics, Johnson landed 118 of 437 blows, while Jones connected with 75 of 270. Jones therefore held a fractionally better percentage, but Johnson threw far more, landed substantially more and controlled the pace. His own description afterwards was straightforward: he had worked the body, kept applying pressure and waited for the opening which eventually appeared. He also said that Jones had never seriously hurt him.

The result represented the most important victory of Johnson’s career. For years he had been regarded as a durable contender whose record contained too many defeats to command serious attention. Several of those losses had been close or controversial, but in Memphis there was nothing to debate. He had beaten one of the outstanding fighters of the previous decade decisively. Johnson’s performance also set up a meeting with Antonio Tarver, who was already discussing a unification contest almost immediately after the knockout.

For Jones, the defeat was more serious than the loss to Tarver four months earlier. Tarver had caught him with one perfect left hand in a fight which had barely developed. Johnson had first outworked him, then worn him down and finally knocked him unconscious. The result therefore raised questions not simply about Jones’s punch resistance but about whether the speed, reflexes and stamina which had separated him from his contemporaries had diminished beyond recovery. Johnson’s victory was later named The Ring’s Upset of the Year for 2004. Jones had spent much of his career making difficult opponents look ordinary. In Memphis, Johnson imposed the simpler plan, carried it out without deviation, and brought the contest to a conclusive end.

The result of this fight came as one of the biggest shocks I can remember. We’d already seen Tarver knock Roy out, but plenty of people put that down to the weight drop after his heavyweight win over John Ruiz.

Roy himself had spoken about how badly that drop had affected him. By the time he fought Glen Johnson, most thought he’d had enough time to recover at 175 and that Johnson was the sort of opponent he should beat without too much trouble.

That’s what made the manner of the defeat so shocking. Johnson didn’t catch him cold with one lucky shot. He got on top of Roy from the start, kept him working, kept him near the ropes and made him look uncomfortable. Roy’s legs and reactions weren’t what we were used to seeing, and Johnson had absolutely no respect for the reputation.

By the time the knockout came in the ninth, Johnson had already broken the rhythm of the fight. Then he landed that right hand and short left, and Roy went down hard. Seeing him lying there motionless was frightening.

For me, that night confirmed something had changed permanently. Tarver’s knockout could be explained away. Johnson’s couldn’t. He didn’t just beat Roy Jones. He outworked him, pressured him and then knocked him out cold.