Antonio Tarver vs. Roy Jones, Jr. III

"No Excuses"

Date	October 1, 2005
Location	St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Florida
Title(s) on the line	IBO/NBA/The Ring Light Heavyweight Championships
Antonio Tarver vs. Roy Jones, Jr.
"The Magic Man"		"Junior"
Tale of the tape
Orlando, Florida	From	Pensacola, Florida
23–3	Pre-fight record	49–3
6'2"	Height	5'11"
175 lb (12 st 7 lb; 79 kg)	Weight	173 lb (12 st 5 lb; 78 kg)
Southpaw	Style	Orthodox
IBO/The Ring Light Heavyweight Champion	Recognition

Antonio Tarver vs. Roy Jones, Jr. III, billed as "No Excuses", was a professional boxing match contested on October 1, 2005 the IBO and The Ring light heavyweight championships (both held by Tarver) and the vacant NBA light heavyweight championship.

The fight's bill comes from a remark made by Tarver to Jones at center ring after the referees' instructions before the second fight. The referee asked both fighters, as is customary, if they had any questions, and Tarver stated: "Yeah, I got a question. You got any excuses tonight, Roy?"

Background

Tarver and Jones had fought each other twice in the previous two years. The first match took place on November 8, 2003 with Jones returning to the light heavyweight division after winning the WBA heavyweight title in his previous bout. Jones was able to narrowly defeat Tarver by majority decision to recapture the WBC light heavyweight title (which Tarver had won earlier in the year after Jones vacated it following his heavyweight title victory) and the vacant WBA super light heavyweight title and retain the IBO and The Ring light heavyweight titles that he still held. The two fighters would have a rematch the following year on May 15, 2004. This time, Tarver would pick up the victory by second round knockout, becoming the first person to knock out Jones in his professional career. Jones attempted to rebound from the first sound defeat of his career by challenging Glen Johnson for the IBF light heavyweight title, but Jones was dominated for much of the fight before being knocked out in the ninth. Tarver would then face Johnson twice, losing the first fight by a controversial split decision, but then winning the second fight by unanimous decision to regain the IBO and The Ring titles.^[1][2] After Tarver's victory over Johnson, a third fight between him and Jones was made for October 1, 2005. Unlike the previous two fights, the WBA and WBC light heavyweight titles were not on the line. After winning the titles from Jones in the second fight, Tarver vacated both titles, choosing to face Johnson (who also vacated his IBF title) rather than the mandatory challenger Paul Briggs.^[3]

The fight

Tarver served as the aggressor for nearly the entire fight as Jones kept his distance and simply did not mount enough offense. There were no knockdowns in the fight, but Tarver came close to scoring one over Jones in the eleventh round. Tarver spent the first minute wildly throwing punches at Jones, who covered up and clinched Tarver. After the referee ordered a break, Tarver landed a right hook to Jones' head that left him severely stunned. Sensing an opportunity at a knockout victory, Tarver quickly attacked Jones, who was now against the ropes, with a left uppercut, but Tarver's momentum sent him over the ropes and nearly out of the ring. Jones retreated but Tarver quickly followed up with a 25 second flurry of punches in an effort to score the knockdown, Jones survived as Tarver soon tired from throwing so many punches. Jones then turned the tables and stalked towards the exhausted Tarver who was able to dodge most of Jones' attempts and both men were able to survive the round.

Ultimately, Tarver, landed a substantial amount of power punches and combinations and both threw and landed more punches (107 of 341) than Jones. Jones landed a higher percentage of his punches with a 36% success rate, but landed only 74 of his 207 thrown punches. All three judges scored the fight in favor of Tarver, who won with two scores of 116–112 and one score of 117–111.^[4]

References