Roy Jones, Jr.

Roy Jones, Jr. (born January 16, 1969, in Pensacola) is an American boxer. He was named "Fighter of the Decade" for the 1990s by the Boxing Writers Association of America.

As a professional he captured IBF championships in the middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight. He also won the WBA heavyweight title in his only fight in this weight class.

He is also noted for holding the WBC, WBA, IBF, IBO, WBF, and IBA light heavyweight championships at the same time

Amateur career

Jones had a very successful career as an amateur boxer - he won the 1984 United States National Junior Olympics in the 119 lb (54 kg) weight division, the 1986 United States National Golden Gloves in the 139 lb (63 kg) weight division and the 1987 United States National Golden Gloves in the 156 lb (71 kg) weight division. As an amateur, Jones ended his career with a 121-13 record.

Jones represented the United States at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games where he won the silver medal. Jones dominated his opponents, never losing a single round on route to the final. His participation in the final proved to be hugely controversial when he lost a highly disputed 3-2 decision in the final. Jones lost to South Korean fighter Park Si-Hun, despite pummeling Park for three rounds, landing 86 punches to Park's 32. Allegedly, Park himself apologized to Jones afterwards. One judge shortly thereafter admitted the decision was a mistake, and all three judges voting against Jones were eventually suspended. An official IOC investigation concluding in 1997 found that 3 of the judges were wined and dined by Korean officials, but the IOC still officially stands by the decision. Jones was awarded the Val Barker trophy as the best stylistic boxer of the 1988 games. The incident, along with another highly disputed decision against American Michael Carbajal in the same games, led Olympic organizers to establish a new scoring system for Olympic boxing.

After the 2002 Winter Olympics scandal where the Olympic committee decided to award gold medals to both Russia's and Canada's figure skating teams after finding that the French judge had been bribed, Jones had hoped that the committee would re-open his case and award him a gold medal, but no such action was taken.