Roy Jones, Jr. - Personal Life

Personal Life

Roy Jones, Jr., was born in Pensacola, Florida, to two very different parents. His mother, Carol, was warm and easy-going, whereas his father, Roy Sr., was much like a Marine Drill Instructor with respect to his son. A decorated Vietnam veteran, ex-club fighter and retired aircraft engineer who had taken up hog farming, Roy Sr. was hard on his son from early on, taunting the child, ``sparring'` with him, enraging Roy Jr., yelling at him and beating the child, often for 20 minutes at a time. This behavior never really changed; if anything it became more brutal as Roy Jr. grew up. Many people would call the father's treatment out-and-out abuse, but he believed he had a good reason for it: to make Roy Jr. tough enough to be a champion. In this pursuit, he was relentless and Roy Jr. lived in constant fear of his father's verbal and physical violence against him.

Jones described his childhood in Sports Illustrated: ``After a while I didn't care about gettin' hurt or dyin' anymore. I was in pain all day, every day, I was so scared of my father. He'd pull up in his truck and start lookin' for something I'd done wrong. There was no escape, no excuse, no way out of nothin'. ... Getting' hurt or dyin' might've been better than the life I was livin'. ... Used to think about killin' myself anyway.'` There's no way to know whether or not Jones would have become a world champion fighter without this extremely punitive upbringing, but there's little question it toughened the young man.

Roy Sr. ran his own boxing gym, to which he devoted all his available time and financial resources. He offered direction and useful discipline to numerous youths and steered many of them away from trouble. Roy Sr. did everything possible to expand the program and help more kids. But towards his own son he was merciless, driving Roy Jr. to the brink of exhaustion, screaming at him in front of all the other fighters, assaulting him. Roy Sr.'s father had been a hard-working laborer and had been tough on him the way he was on Roy Jr. But Jones, the world champion boxer, will not continue this line of treatment. He is very attuned to others' anguish; on his web site, he says, ``What gets down?'` is watching other people be hurt and mistreated.'` It is a feeling he has known very well.

Using his birds as an image for his own predicament, Jones said in the same Sports Illustrated piece: ``I spent all my life in my dad's cage. I could never be 100 percent of who I am until I left it. But because of him, nothing bothers me. I'll never face anything stronger and harder than what I already have.'` Jones' father, with his overbearing and overwhelming personality, had created a powerful craving in the boxer—the need to become his own man.

Former Heavyweight Champion George Foreman said Jones, "hits like a heavyweight and moves like a lightweight."

Boxer Montell Griffin, who faced Jones twice at 175 lbs and sparred with Floyd Mayweather Jr. at 140 lbs said, "Floyd was no comparison as far as speed. Roy was much faster."

In 1996, High Frequency Boxing's John DiMaio wrote ``The early evidence points toward the real possibility that Jones is the greatest talent this sport has ever seen. His skill so dwarfs that of his nearest ranked opposition...that providing competitive opponents is a more challenging dilemma than the fights themselves.'` The expert opinion of Boxing magazine's editor, Bert Sugar, is provided on Jones' website: ``He possesses the fastest hands in boxing with lightning fast moves and explosive power in both hands.'` After Mike MacCallum lost the World Boxing Council light heavyweight crown to Roy Jones in a 1996 unanimous decision, he called Jones ``the greatest fighter of all time.'`