JONES-TARVER PREVIEW

November 3, 2003 - by William Dettloff

Antonio Tarver didn't have to do it this way. Like a lot of belt holders do, he could have picked and chosen his opponents when he felt like it, satisfied his alphabet mandatory when he had to, and made a very decent living. It's what a lot of guys do who are satisfied with, and maybe a little surprised by, the level of success they've reached in the ring, and are perfectly content after that to ride things out to their eventual conclusion. Get in, make some money and get out, intact. You can't blame them for it. This is a rough business.

That Tarver went well out of his way to wrangle himself a fight with Roy Jones is consistent with his history and character. He didn't have to fight Eric Harding last July, for example, but he did. He would have had a shot at least at one of the vacant belts based on his win over veteran Reggie Johnson.

But he took on the top-ranked Harding anyway, even though Harding had given him a good beating and broken his jaw in their first match, in June 2000. Tarver's courage almost backfired; Harding was handling him until he got some bad advice from his corner and walked into a heavy left hand from which he couldn't recover. Tarver stopped him in the fifth round.

After that Tarver took apart the well-traveled and stubborn Montell Griffin over 12 rounds to claim the alphabet hardware with which Jones is so in love, and which he defended, rather indifferently, 11 times over a five-year reign. That Jones fought with such a leisurely air and still cleaned out the light heavyweight division is testament to his remarkable abilities and certainly informed his decision to move up to heavyweight and befuddle and decision titlist John Ruiz, who, you can argue, is roughly the equivalent of this generation's Scott LeDoux.

It was at the postfight press conference immediately following Jones' patient pasting of Ruiz that Tarver began to agitate, disrupting what Jones, and much of the fight press too, viewed as a sort of coronation. Playing the mad heckler, Tarver wouldn't let Jones enjoy it.

It was a brilliant strategy to employ against an egoist of Jones' order and the job Tarver did that night, coupled, not unimportantly, with Jones' failure to lock up a fight at heavyweight with terms he found favorable, has brought us to where we are now. Here's the rub: It is very probable that Tarver will discover quite soon that this is not a place he really wants to be.

Griffin, who went the full route with Tarver and split two fights with Jones - a DQ win and a one-round knockout loss - doesn't anticipate much of a contest. "He's a real passive fighter," Griffin said of Tarver. "I see Roy jumping on him early and getting it done in maybe three or four rounds. In terms of speed there's no comparison. And Tarver didn't hit as hard as I thought he could. He's just real long and lanky. It's all about timing with him."

It's more than that working against Tarver. Jones, for all his cavalier tendencies, gives the impression of being passionate about this fight, and not just because of Tarver's incessant warbling.

"It's an ego fight for Jones," said Griffin. "Especially after James Toney beat Evander Holyfield the way he did. Roy doesn't like anyone going one-up on him. He'll try to make a statement against Tarver."

For Tarver, the news could hardly be worse. Throughout his career Jones frequently has bored fight crowds unappreciative of his finer skills and a cautious style. But his frequent passivity is evidence not merely of a wish for self-preservation, but of his distaste for inflicting real damage on his opponents. Simply, he doesn't like to hurt guys.

He is an obsessive competitor and a brilliant fighter but it's not necessary, from a personal standpoint, for him to induce head trauma in his opponents. He is perfectly happy if everyone can walk out of the ring unassisted when it's over, so long as there is no question around his superiority.

That's really all that matters.

But when inspired, for whatever reason, to relieve himself of the burden of worrying over his opponent's well-being and fight aggressively - as he did in the rematch with Griffin, and as it appears he may do against Tarver -- Jones is flat-out dangerous.

The excellent Buddy McGirt, quite probably the most desired young trainer in the business, trains Tarver. McGirt, of course, was an outstanding pro fighter and two-division champion during the 1980s and early -'90s. In March 1993 he met the great Pernell Whitaker and lost a reasonably close decision, along with the welterweight title.

Soon after, McGirt began a campaign to shame Whitaker into a rematch, claiming, very probably legitimately, that his injured shoulder prevented him from fighting his best, and if Whitaker were any kind of real man, he'd give McGirt another chance. The rhetoric was in tenor not unlike Tarver's agitation of Jones. McGirt and his team kept it up and kept at it and Whitaker, a surly sort to begin with, got tired of it and gave McGirt his rematch.

From bell to bell McGirt got his head handed to him and about halfway though got a look on his face that said he'd gotten what he'd asked for but wished he'd never asked. It probably won't take Tarver as long to get the same look.