Roy Jones Jr scored 47 knockouts in his 75 contests, but none came faster than during his first fight without an undefeated record.
‘Captain Hook’ went 34 fights undefeated to start off his pro campaign, winning belts at middle, super middle and light heavyweight before he suffered his first loss.
It came against Montell Griffin in Jones’ first defence of the WBC belt at 175 pounds. The challenger would frustrate Jones like not many had before, and banked early rounds on all three official scorecards.
Jones found his flow in the ninth and looked to take the fight out of the hands of the judges, stopping Griffin in his tracks with a right hand before unleashing for a knockout. Griffin wisely took a knee to buy himself some time, confident he could regain his points lead thereafter. Jones had other ideas, landing a right-left combination when his opponent had no means to defend himself.
Though initially looking like a stoppage victory for the champion, referee Tony Perez then announced that he was disqualifying Jones. On the rule break, Griffin later told On The Ropes Boxing Radio that those shots ‘paralysed’ him in the moment.
“He caught me with a good right hand behind the head and I was a little dizzy. I knew what was going on so I just told myself, ‘Montell, it’s the ninth round. You got three rounds left. You got to be winning this fight. Take a knee! Take a knee, clear your head, and we’ll just come out and we got to win 10, 11, and 12’.
“So when I took the knee, I pulled back, went down on my knee, and looked at up at the referee to start his count. By the time I looked up, the man hit me. He hit me the first time and it caught me off guard and then he loaded up and hit me the second time and at that point I could hear everything that was going on but it was like my body was paralyzed. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything.”
Jones vs Griffin II
Six months later, the pair rematched and a motivated Jones ended it within 151 seconds. A lightning fast left hook in the first 20 seconds sent Griffin staggering into the ropes for a knockdown.
Jones pounced once more and this time around Griffin did not have the chance to take a knee – with about 40 seconds left on the clock for the opener, the pound-for-pound star landed his trademark leaping left hook to put the champion flat on his back. Griffin tried but failed to find his feet, falling around the ring before referee Arthur Mercante Sr waved it off.
#OnThisDay – In 1997, Roy Jones Jr. defeated Montell Griffin by KO in round 1 of 12 to win the WBC light heavyweight title. pic.twitter.com/UDDwsavWby
— b0xingfan (@b0xingfan) August 7, 2022
Roy Jones Jr was champion once more and would not taste defeat again for seven years.
