Roy Wants Oscar? What's Superman Smokin'?

Some of us saw a legend with some left in the tank taking on a foe tailor made for him.

But it doesn’t matter what some of us saw, and think.

Because Roy Jones, after knocking Tito Trinidad to the mat twice and taking a UD12, is feeling strong, and believes he has more left in the tank than us critiquers do.

To that end, Jones is tossing his hat into several rings, and offering himself up to multiple bidders and hitters.

“I told you Roy Jones Jr. is back,” Jones said after Saturday’s effort, in which he used his energy reserves in judicious fashion while shrugging off Trinidad’s body-focused attack without so much as a grimace.

  “I’ll take the winner of either the re-match between Kelly Pavlik and Jermain Taylor or Joe Calzaghe versus Bernard Hopkins,” Jones said. “I’m even willing to go down to 156 pounds to face Oscar De La Hoy in May.  Line them up and I’ll knock them down.”

The first two possibilities make sense, from a money and fan interest perspective; the De La Hoya scrap passes the fiscal hurdle, but I’m not sure I’d like to see what’s left in Jones’ tank after he breaks down his muscles to make 156 pounds. No, I am sure—don’t even think it, Jones, not after you made so much of your difficulty in dropping from heavyweight back down to 175 pounds in 2003.

“I always said that with the right motivation and focus I can still be Superman,” Jones said. “I saw it in the gym leading up to the fight and Tito Trinidad and everybody else saw it on Saturday night at the Garden.  Like I said, line ‘em up and I’ll knock them down.”

What he saw and I saw are two entirely different things, but that doesn’t mean that I’d not watch Calzaghe/Jones to see if Jones could hand Joe his first ‘L’ since I’m doubting Hopkins will be busy enough to do that on April 19 in Las Vegas.

The sturdiest stake in a career coffin comes when no one cares.

And as evidenced by this column, I still care about Roy Jones, and what he does next.

This Superman can’t leap tall building in a single bound; he needs a running start, and he has to choose his buildings wisely. This Superman has been weakened by the Kryptonite that gets us all, aging, but I am still curious, I guess,  to see if he is more powerful than a lot of the other locomotives in circulation.