In his final professional contest, Joe Calzaghe outpointed the legendary Roy Jones Jr at Madison Square Garden, but Chris Eubank Sr has made a prediction for how that fight would have played out if both were in their prime.
Calzaghe defeated Eubank to claim the WBO super-middleweight world title in 1997 and made a record 21 defences of the belt before moving up to light-heavyweight in 2007, where he overcame both Bernard Hopkins and Jones.
Jones, however, was 39 years old at that point and his best days were behind him, with knockout defeats to both Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson signalling the end of his domination of the sport a few years prior.
Speaking with Sky Sports, Eubank told Calzaghe that a fight with the American, with both at their best, would have been ‘suicide’, claiming that at his prime Jones was unbeatable.
“I had an ego to fight James Toney and to fight Roy Jones, but this was a kind of suicide. When we [Eubank and Jones] met when Naseem was fighting in April 2001, I said to you did you actually think the only person that would give you trouble is Chris Eubank?
You said yeah. I said you know what, if the fight would have ever happened, we would have both been hurt, as I’d have had to go to war to win.
You can’t beat guys like this in his time, in all respect to Joe [Calzaghe], in his time it’s suicide.”
Despite the 2008 defeat to Calzaghe, Jones Jr. fought as recently as 2023, in what looks to be the final fight in the second-longest professional career of any former heavyweight world champion.