Roy Jones Jr.

Roy Jones Jr. (born January 16, 1969) is a former Middleweight, Super Middleweight, Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight boxing champion and basketball player from Pensacola, Florida. Although he used to play basketball for a team in Birmingham, Alabama, Jones is more widely known for his achievements in the boxing ring. Jones was Ring magazine's "Fighter of the Year" in 1994 and was voted the "Fighter of the Decade" in the 1999 by the Boxing Writers Association of America. Jones was then once considered as the best pound for pound fighter in the world.

Amateur career

Roy Jones Jr. had a very successful career as an amateur boxer - he won the 1984 United States National Junior Olympics in the 119 lb. weight division, he won the 1986 United States National Golden Gloves in the 139 lb. weight division and he won the 1987 United States National Golden Gloves in the 156 lb. weight division.

Related Topics:
United States - Golden Gloves

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Jones is best remembered for representing the United States at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. His participation there proved to be controversial since, just as in Michael Carbajal's case, he lost a highly disputed decision in the final. Jones lost to a South Korean fighter, and a subsequent investigation led some of the judges to admit that they had accepted bribes from Korean officials to vote against Jones. Jones never accepted the silver medal, and his case, along with Carbajal's, led Olympic organizers to establish a new scoring system for Olympic boxing, a system that later began to be used on all amateur fights.

Related Topics:
United States - 1988 - Seoul - Olympic Games - Michael Carbajal - South Korea

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It should be mentioned that, after the 2002 Winter Olympics scandal where the Olympic committee decided to award gold medals to both Russia's and Canada's figure skating teams after finding that the French judge had been bribed, Jones had hoped that the committee would re-open his case and award him a gold medal. However, no such action was taken by the Olympic committee.

Related Topics:
2002 Winter Olympics - Russia - Canada - Figure skating - French

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