Tales from the Tape: Jones-McCallum

Tales from the Tape: Jones-McCallum
Mark E. Ortega

HBO World Championship Boxing: Jones, Jr.-McCallum/Barrera-Jones [11-22-96]

One of the many thrills about boxing, for me at least, is that behind every fight there is a back-story. Regardless of how big or small the fight is, in the build-up for the fight there have been interesting moments that make it interesting to look back at old fights and some of the comments made by those featured in the televised broadcasts. This will be the inaugural run of the series, and the lone piece submitted in 2008 to see what the response will be.


Heading into 2009, HBO has made it known that they will no longer be airing bouts that are complete mismatches. Bouts that were denied by HBO for 2009 include Kelly Pavlik-Marco Antonio Rubio, Miguel Cotto-Michael Jennings, and Andre Ward against either Edison Miranda or Allan Green. With that news, hopefully some more evenly matched fights get put together instead of one fighter being showcased in one-sided demolition fights. It seems that HBO has finally learned their lesson, and on that note I would like to turn back the clock to an old HBO World Championship Boxing card that had two well-matched bouts televised.

Aired on November 22, 1996, it featured an extraordinary two-fight card consisting of two world title fights (sort of). In the opening bout, Marco Antonio Barrera [43-0] puts his WBO super bantamweight title as well as his undefeated record on the line against the veteran and former world champion, Junior Jones [42-2-0]. The main event is Roy Jones, Jr. [33-0], who is universally recognized as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world at this point in history, moving up to light heavyweight for the first time in his career to take on the 39-year old future Hall-of-Famer Mike McCallum [49-3-1]. This is recognized as a title fight because the WBC made it for their “interim” WBC light heavyweight title.. It is interesting looking back what the reaction was to this, as interim titles are pretty prevalent in the sport today.

HBO commentators Jim Lampley had an interesting interaction on the subject:

Jim: Larry, what the hell is an interim light heavyweight championship?

Larry: Jim, the WBC is notorious for two things: larceny and making up the rules as it goes along. So who knows what it means?

As explained, Jones, Jr. wanted to fight for a title so he offered the WBC 100 grand to make it a title fight and the WBC obliged. What made this fight even more interesting was the fact that two sets of judges were scoring the fight. The WBC said they could not trust Florida judges to score the fight fairly due to Jones, Jr. being a native of Pensacola, Florida. The Florida State Athletic Commission considered that sentiment a slap in the face and insisted in putting their judges at ringside and their own referee in the ring. The WBC then paid for three judges to score the fight from the ringside seats instead of up on top of a judge’s perch. Many were wondering what would happen if the two sets of judges saw two separate winners for the fight. The FSAC’s scores would matter on the records of the fighters but only the WBC can award title belts based on whatever scoring they want so their judges would decide the champion. This is interesting because when Nate Campbell was going to defend his lightweight titles against Joan Guzman, the Mississippi insisted their judges score the fight and we nearly had the same controversy. Fortunately, they were able to settle things, but it did not end up mattering since Guzman pulled out and a fight never took place.

Barrera taking on Jones had a lot of intriguing things heading into the fight. Barrera was the undefeated future of the little guys. His fight with Kennedy McKinney on the inaugural broadcast of HBO’s Boxing After Dark made Barrera a star. Junior Jones had been in that spot just a few years before, until a couple of knockout losses, one to a .500 level fighter, set him back. He had an impressive split decision victory over a good fighter in Orlando Canizales, although many thought he lost the fight. Barrera was supposed to look good beating him and putting a name on his already impressive ledger at only 22 years of age.

To many people’s surprise, Jones and his team went into the fight expecting to win. He ironically entered the ring to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”. His manager, Gary Gittelsohn, and his promoter, Cedric Kushner, gave their part of the purse (minus the cost of travel) to Jones because they expected a future that had more paydays to look forward to. HBO’s team wondered if they gave him their purse because they thought it would be the last payday Junior Jones ever received. Gittelsohn would later award his portion of the purse to Jones again, but it was following a loss to Erik Morales in Mexico later in his career.

The fight was destined to be a good one. Although Barrera was expected to win, he had never fought against a jab like Junior Jones possessed. Jones was recognized as having one of the best jabs in the sport at the time. Jones had an astonishing 35-0 record against Mexican fighters. He had just been in camp with Evander Holyfield, who was also trained by Tommy Brooks. He even had Lou Duva in his camp as a second assistant. There were a lot of wild cards going into the fight, many of them favored Jones.

The first round saw Jones throw fifty-four jabs and controlling the distance. Barrera tried stealing the round. Jones clinched anytime Barrera tried getting inside of him, which was a very effective way to control Barrera. The fight begins to get dirty in the second round when Jones hits Barrera behind the head and Barrera launches a few shots south of the border that are missed by the referee. Barrera wins the round. In the third they exchange in the center of the ring and Jones is the more effective of the two. When Barrera comes inside he doesn’t use any head movement and he is getting repeatedly tagged by Jones’ fantastic jab. Barrera is now switching it up and going to the body, which seems to be doing some good. Jones triples up behind the left hand. Barrera digs to the body before the bell rings. The fourth was a back-and-forth round that deteriorated both fighters.

Barrera begins the fifth round with a good left hook to the body. A brutal exchange leads to a bloody nose for Jones. Barrera’s left eye is cut and he claims it is due to an illegal butt. Towards the end of the round, Jones lands a picture-perfect right hook that drops Barrera violently. Barrera somehow makes it to his feet, but has still more than ten seconds before the round is over. Jones throws a violent flurry with Barrera leaning on the ropes, and the referee stops the fight, but seemingly after the bell has rung. There is mass confusion in the ring, but Jones’ corner is in the ring celebrating, selling the victory. It almost seemed like a tactic you would see in professional wrestling, and many credit Lou Duva with the idea to get in the ring and celebrate before they could figure things out. Either way; Barrera was out on his feet, and the referee cited that the corner of Barrera entered during the round, thus ending the fight. The ruling was announced as a TKO at 2:59 in the round, but the result would be changed to a disqualification later on.

While they got ready for the main event, the HBO broadcast team discussed the night’s matchup. Featured was the unofficial scorekeeper Harold Lederman’s second ever appearance on-screen. You would have to think in all the years he had been around by then he would have a few more appearances. After Lederman weighs in on the fight, Jim refers to him as the Dick Vitale of boxing, which is as close as you can peg Lederman in a few words.

They then show interview pieces with both fighters, and the most interesting story is how Mike McCallum, always one of the better fighters in the world, was avoided by so many others. His best years may have been in the mid-80’s, but neither Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, or Marvin Hagler ever gave McCallum a shot at a big payday. Interestingly, McCallum had always been smart about putting away his money, so he didn’t need the shot like many others did but he wanted a chance very badly.

He had run off a nice streak of wins to begin his career, knocking off undefeated Julian Jackson and elite fighters Milton McCrory and Donald Curry before unsuccessful challenging for his second world title against Sumbu Kalambay in 1988. He would later add the middleweight title to his junior middleweight crown when he beat Herol Graham by split decision for the WBA 160-pound title. He beat Steve Collins, Michael Watson, got revenge against Kalambay in a rematch, and drew with James Toney. Two fights later he would lose a majority decision to Toney. McCallum would later jump to 175 pounds and win a world title there in an “interim” WBC light heavyweight title, much like the one he would be fighting Jones, Jr. for. He would lose his world title to Fabrice Tiozzo before taking on the undefeated world’s best fighter in Jones, Jr.

Highlights of Roy’s career up until that point were convincing wins over Bernard Hopkins; who would go on to become perhaps the best 160-pounder of all-time, and James Toney; another all-time great multiple division champion. He would then fight softer competition for a few years before taking this fight that many considered a challenging one, even though McCallum was nearly forty years old at the time. There was a lot of mutual respect from both fighters heading into this fight.

Jones, Jr. began with his usual antics, entering the ring to a rap song recording by himself in preparation for the fight. It featured lyrics specific to his fight with McCallum, which was very egocentric, even for Jones, Jr.

The first round of the fight features a very interesting remark made by George Foreman, who was also doing commentary for the night’s action. He mentions something about Jones, Jr. moving up a few pounds to become heavyweight champion of the world to which Lampley responds, “You mean light heavyweight champion of the world?”

Foreman replies, “No, he can move up a few pounds. Every guy wants to be heavyweight champion of the world.”

“He’d have to go up thirty or forty pounds!” exclaimed Lampley. Foreman later goes on about if he is going to do it he should do it sooner rather than later. Roy wouldn’t become heavyweight champion of the world until 2003, when he outpointed John Ruiz for the WBA belt. As hard as it was to tolerate George Foreman sometimes on these HBO broadcasts, he was generally correct when he made bold statements.

As for the action in the first round, McCallum was doing very well behind his jab. It is also amazing to see how good Jones’ reflexes were at this stage of his career. Someone mentions that, sewn into Roy’s trunks is a microphone. They were unsure what the benefit of having this microphone was, but for about twenty seconds you can hear body shots a little bit louder was about it. For what it’s worth, the round was a close one that had a slight lean towards McCallum.

McCallum was being very effective, especially with hooks to the body whenever he had Jones on the ropes. Most of Jones’ shots were reach-in shots with little to no power on them. A right cross lands for Roy, maybe his biggest punch so far. They trade equally in the center of the ring. It was a close round that McCallum edged on aggressiveness. Roy Jones, Jr. was rarely losing rounds in his career, yet I thought he was two rounds behind in the second.

HBO also reminds you of some future boxing cards, and one that jumped out at me was a double-header featuring Montell Griffin taking on James Toney and Julio Cesar Chavez fighting Micky Ward. Unfortunately, a Chavez-Ward fight never took place, and we can only imagine what kind of war that fight would have been.

Jones started to take over the fight midway through. I gave three of the first four rounds to McCallum, who was being very effective with body shots and was pressing the action. Roy was, for the most part, potshotting his way through the first half of the fight. He started to pick up the pace at the end of round five, when he unleashed a classic Roy seven punch combination that both looks flashy and does damage. It was enough to steal the round and start building momentum for Jones.

Round six was a close round but Jones landed the better looking punches. McCallum was starting to slow down at this point of the fight. At the same time, Jones was starting to open up a bit more and he also started throwing lead left hooks..

Another interesting thing about this fight was that the HBO team could see the WBC judges’ scorecards throughout the duration of the fight. The WBC judges were in paid seats in the audience or at press tables. Someone was relaying scores to the HBO team, and the WBC judges had Jones way ahead. Merchant had the fight much closer, saying he though at one point McCallum was winning the fight but that he had seen a shift. Harold Lederman, HBO’s unofficial scorekeeper, had the fight more in line with the WBC judges. Even so, everyone agreed that the Florida state judges probably had Jones well ahead in the fight.

Rounds seven and eight were still close rounds but Jones was starting to pull ahead. Foreman mentioned that McCallum has no power up top with his right hand, which is odd. He was doing good damage with body shots, especially early in the fight, but he wasn’t hurting Roy against the ropes with anything he threw to the head. Once Jones felt he couldn’t be hurt you saw him start to gain control in the fight. Early on in the bout, the HBO team discusses how you can see that Jones has a lot of respect for McCallum. Jones wasn’t going after his opponent like he had against so many overmatched foes before this one.

Round nine was an interesting one to me. I thought Jones had absolutely dominated the round and it may have been one of his best rounds so far in the fight. Yet, two of the three WBC judges scored it for McCallum. I always wondered, if in fights that are pretty close but you have one fighter way ahead, you start scoring rounds for the fighter that is behind for no reason except to make the scores closer. I thought McCallum was in the fight, but I did not think he did anything to warrant being awarded the ninth round. Did those two WBC judges have doubt that Jones should be decisively ahead like their scorecards told them he should be? It is always interesting to me when we get to know how the fight is being scored.

The tenth round was close until a Jones quick right hand over the top knocked McCallum down with seconds remaining. It was a beautiful shot that McCallum just didn’t see coming.

The eleventh was another close round until about a minute left when Jones just unloads eight straight left hooks upstairs. The bursts of speed Jones had in this fight were ridiculous. I think I would favor this version of Roy Jones, Jr. slightly over a recent version of Joe Calzaghe.

In between the eleventh and twelfth rounds, Jones spoke to the camera and HBO, which is something that you would expect from him. McCallum was on his way to having a good round until Jones started firing off combinations and he even threw in a bolo punch for good measure. He hurt McCallum at the end of the fight, but he made it to the bell.

The Florida state judges did not score a single round for McCallum between the three of them. All three judges had Jones winning, 120-107. How you do not award a single round to McCallum is disgraceful. The WBC judges had it more in the right ballpark with scores of 116-111, 117-110, and 119-108 all for Jones. I had the fight 116-112 for Jones, only giving one of the final seven rounds to McCallum.

It was a good performance from Jones against an old veteran who had a good fight or two left in him. A few months later, McCallum would give one final good performance in a unanimous decision loss to James Toney. The fight was a rematch of a 1992 fight that saw Toney win by majority decision. Five years later, McCallum would put on another good performance against James. Two judges only had him narrowly losing a decision, while a third judge had Toney slightly further ahead.

We all know where Jones’ career has gone since this fight. Jones’ early career will always be the highlight of what he has done professionally. The only thing that compares with his early work was winning the heavyweight title, but even that was cherry-picked. After this fight, Jones would fight mandatory after mandatory on HBO, milking their budget to put on sparring contests for years to come. Two knockout losses in a row after moving down from heavyweight took Jones off the big stage for a few years before he returned with a win over Felix Trinidad on pay-per-view. Jones-Trinidad drew some of the best numbers for the year, making people think a Jones-Calzaghe fight would sell well. They were wrong, with that fight drawing not too many buys (especially not enough to warrant a 24/7 series) and souring Calzaghe on the sport altogether. Whether Jones will fight on is another question, although I personally hope he hangs them up. If Jones were to have beaten Calzaghe, I would have been very interested in a Jones-Hopkins rematch. Even still, if the fight was announced I am sure I would find a way to tune in.

Hopefully we see some of these types of cards in 2009 on HBO. Already we have some fantastic matchups with Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley taking place in Los Angeles in January. A week earlier, a great Boxing After Dark card featuring prospects Sergio Gabriel Martinez and Joe Greene in a good bout, as well as Andre Berto fighting a live body for once in Luis Collazo. Alfredo Angulo-Ricardo Mayorga and Nate Campbell-Ali Funeka should be a fun card in February. That’s a pretty good start as far as I am concerned.

The next addition of Tales from the Tape will be about another quality HBO card (or at least main event) from August 2, 1997 that pits Philip Holiday and Shane Mosley against each other for Holiday’s IBF Lightweight title. Also on the card is a bout between Angel Manfredy and Jorge Paez, quite possibly two of boxing’s craziest personalities. This will of course be in anticipation of Mosley’s upcoming welterweight title bout with Antonio Margarito. The following week will likely look at an old Margarito fight from my collection.