The great Roy Jones Jr talks to Fight Hub TV about his insights to a couple of fights starting with a prospective future matchup between Canelo Alvarez and David Benavidez, before sharing some thoughts on the upcoming fight between Devin Haney and Vasiliy Lomachenko. Jones also shared some post-fight thoughts on Benavidez’s most recent outing against Caleb Plant. Check out some of what he had to say below.
Jones on the Benavidez vs Plant fight
“I like both fighters, I’m a fan of both. I think they’re both good fighters. I just also knew that — you gotta remember, I do this thing. You understand what I mean? I’m older and I’m not the physical specimen I used to be, but up here (in your mind) it never leaves.
“I told everybody Caleb is good, yes, and Caleb gonna do good boxing with him early. But once he gets past the fifth or the sixth round the boxing is gonna go away because now Benavidez is gonna be used to it, he’s gonna know where the danger is and where the danger ain’t, and when he realizes where the danger ain’t he’s going for it.
“Once Caleb started getting a little bit of fatigue in him, he ain’t have the power to keep him off. You gotta have the power to keep Benavidez off of you or it ain’t gonna work. He’s an excellent boxer but you got to have power to keep that man off you. If you can’t keep the monster off of you, it’s gonna be trouble.”
On if Benavidez would be much more vulnerable to Canelo
“(Benavidez) been wanting that danger. He’s been asking for that for a long time. It ain’t him that’s been saying no…It’s a tough fight for him, tougher than people think but I think David definitely wants the fight. I just don’t know — I think Canelo is probably waiting for the timing, or waiting for the right time.
“You can’t take nothing away from Canelo because Canelo did stop Caleb, David didn’t stop Caleb. So in Canelo’s eyes he’s still the better fighter right now. And David wants to prove, ‘no, I’m the better fighter.’
“It’s a tough fight to call. One of them is young an enthusiastic. The other is very experienced and he’s not such an old guy either, but he got a lot of fights behind him. So it depends on how socially involved both fighters get. Because it’s a Mexican battle, how much can that bring out of Canelo? Will that bring the fire Canelo that we want to see, or will that make him get up because he’s defending his home country, what’s gonna happen?
“If he don’t do that, he won’t beat Benavidez. But if that makes him get up to defend home, we’ll see a good fight. You never know.”
On keys to victory for both fighters in the Devin Haney vs Vasiliy Lomachenko match
“(Devin) gotta do the same thing Teofimo Lopez did, impose his size on Loma, because Loma’s really not a lightweight. Loma really a junior lightweight and anybody knows boxing knows this. So Devin has to go out, use his size, hit him with something early to get the respect like Teofimo did, and keep Loma at bay.
“Loma, on the other hand, has to do the opposite of what he did with Teofimo Lopez. He gotta forget about ‘maybe I’ll get caught.’ You got to forget about that and start the fight early if you want to have a chance. Because you wait and wait and wait — sometimes those guys take a little longer to get fatigued than you expect.
“To me, he started a round or two too late with Teofimo Lopez. So if he can start a little bit earlier he’ll have a better chance. But the earlier the start also endangers you of getting caught with a big shot by a bigger guy. So I understand why he didn’t go in and do it earlier, but to win the fight you’re gonna have to do it earlier.”
