Antonio Tarver vs. Roy Jones Jr. III
St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa, Florida, US | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Title(s) on the line | IBO and The Ring light heavyweight titles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tale of the tape | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Result | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tarver wins via 12-round unanimous decision (116-112, 116-112, 117-111) |
Antonio Tarver vs. Roy Jones Jr. III, billed as No Excuses, was a professional boxing match contested on October 1, 2005 for Tarver's IBO and The Ring light heavyweight championships.
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 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. Unofficial HBO judge Harold Lederman scored the fight 116–112 for Tarver, while ESPN scored the fight 118–111 for Tarver.[4]
References
- ^ Johnson earns split decision over Tarver, Baltimore Sun article, 2004-12-19, Retrieved on 2013-11-25
- ^ Tarver gains revenge over Johnson, BBC article, 2005-06-19, Retrieved on 2013-11-25
- ^ Tarver and Johnson forfeit titles, BBC article, 2004-11-10, Retrieved on 2013-11-25
- ^ Tarver hands Jones third straight loss, ESPN article, 2005-10-01, Retrieved on 2013-11-16