Jones/Calzaghe: Two Ships Passing in The Night

 
The fight to have been seen would have been between Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones about ten years ago - when Jones was at his peak.  I don't believe it to be any fluke that both Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson knocked him out.  It has oft been said that a fighter's reflexes and speed are the first thing/s to go and it is Roy's incredible speed and reflexes that made him so great.  I shall always remember Max Kellerman saying after one of Jones' fights that he would be able to tell his grandkids that Roy Jones Junior actually knocked a guy out with both hands behind him - which Jones actually did.  Had I not seen it myself, I would not have believed it.  Of other Jones' fights it was said that "he intimidates people with his speed".  Hardly disputable.  As Roy himself was fond of saying, that he had "forgotten more than most fighters know."
 
Going in as a huge underdog I marvelled at Roy Jones' performance against John Ruiz.  I don't believe Ruiz touched him.  Ruiz could only bitterly complain about the Referree Jay Nady, as if somehow Nady was responsible for Jones' broad grin the entire night as he peppered Ruiz at will, while Jones remained untouched.  Such was Jones' performance that there was talk of him facing Klitzchko.  Could it happen again? Then it was Antonio Tarver.  And overnight the mystique of Jones' invinsibility was shattered.

 
Alas, so much for the epochal era of Roy Jones' invinsibility and immortality.  The suggestion was made then that Jones face Calzaghe.  Was the price/purse not right?  Did Jones not want to cross the pond?  Did Jones believe Calzaghe a viable threat?  The match never came to pass.  Alas, whatever the reason, that was then; this is now. 
 
After Calzaghe's consistent performances, his methodical dismantaling of opponents, it appears that Calzaghe is in the peak of his prowess.  Of the pending fight Saturday evening I have this picture of two ships passing in the night: the ascension of Joe Calzaghe and the descension of Roy Jones Jr. 
 
What of Roy's chances?  I'm thinking now of that scene in ALIEN where the cyborg character is asked of the crew's chances of survival against the terrifying alien.  The cyborg tells them "You are dealing with a creature whose structural perfection is matched only by its hostility."  And he grins and says "You have my sympathies." 
 
Given the respective recent histories of both fighters I would have to say that the admirable and all-time great Roy Jones has my sympathies.  There yet remains the perspective that he occupies the cat-bird seat against Calzaghe.  Regardless of the outcome, Jones can lay claim to former greatness in the event that he loses, and in the event that he wins he may lay claim to transcendent greatness as Hopkins did recently against Pavlik. 
 
 
 
CD (Carey Don) Womack