Puncher's Chance
Roy Jones Jr. gets his swagger back
by Brandon Guarneri
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MF: Let's talk training. Where are you now, and how's everything going?
Jones Jr.: Pensicola, Florida. Everything's going good.
MF: Are you training any differently for this fight than you used to?
Jones Jr.: Nope. Same old, same old.
MF: What kind of daily cardio are you doing?
Jones Jr.: I do running and bike riding. I run about five miles, 3-5 miles every morning, and when I don't run I do my bike riding, about 5-10 miles. I do shadow boxing, jump rope, speed bag both for hand-eye coordination and for cardio. Shadow boxing and the heavy bag are both great for cardio.
MF: Are you lifting at all?
Jones Jr.: I'm doing a little bit, but not much, only because I know for me, it can compromise my speed, so I try not to lift too much.
MF: You were the first middleweight champ in over 100 years to win the heavyweight belt. Was it hard to change your body for that fight?
Jones Jr.: It really wasn't hard at all. I have good eating habits. I worked hard, the good part it was so easy. I did it the right way. Losing it was a problem that I didn't think I'd have. My back was having a hard time because it wasn't used to carrying that much weight. So I had a really hard time, even during the fight. After round seven I knew my back was going to give mea problem, and it did. It was a heck of a transformation to gain 25 pounds of muscle in six weeks was very difficult.
MF: Do you have any tips for our guys, how they can gain weight and not get fat?
Jones Jr.: Make sure you maintain a healthy diet and exercise every part of your body. Make sure you eat right. Animal fat and animal protein are the best things to help you put on weight. Animal protein is beautiful. Animal protein will put on muscle weight, but you got to be working out to do it. You can't be eating animal protein all the time and not working out or it'll turn to fat.
MF: Do you diet for a fight?
Jones Jr.: Yeah I do diet. No fried food, no red meat, no sweets, no dairy products, no bread, not many starches.
MF: Is it hard to get used to?
Jones Jr.: Nah, I've done it so many times. My body just goes on automatic. I stop eating the wrong food and I drop weight right away.
MF: Do you enjoy training for a fight?
Jones Jr.: Love it. It's a passion. It used to be work — it's gotten to be work lately — but now it's back to where it's very enjoyable. The last fight it was very enjoyable, the fight before that was very enjoyable. What was enjoyable about it for me was being an entertainer. But lately, as of my last two fights, I had stopped doing that. I was kind of out there for work. It was more like, "well, I got to go rake the yard, so let's go ahead and get it over with." And that's not what God blessed me to do, you feel me?
That's why I wasn't winning, because I wasn't eager, wasn't hype, wasn't having a good time, wasn't playing, wasn't entertaining. People like to watch Roy Jones because they never know what Roy Jones might do. The three fights that I lost, after coming back down from heavyweight, losing 25 lbs of muscle, I didn't have any extra energy to do nothin'. That's not Roy Jones, you feel me?
MF: Do you think you'll be back to your old self in this fight?
Jones Jr.: Oh, I am back to my old self. I had a good time in my last fight, the last two fights I had I had a really good time. I was energetic: I was just as fresh in round 12 as I was in round 1. That's the old Roy Jones. That's how I know I have enough energy to do what I want to do now.
MF: What changed? Did you figure something out?
Jones Jr.: I figured out that I had to let my body make a real adjustment. 25 lbs of muscle was a lot to lose. That's a lot of pressure to put on my body at 36 years old. I also feel like I wasn't having a good time, I was doing work. That's not what I was blessed to do. I was blessed to do it to have a good time. I'm the kind of guy who's blessed to go in the ring and put my hands behind my back if I want to, do whatever I want to do. That was part of me entertaining the crowd. That's what I was blessed to do. I wasn't blessed to fight with my hands up.
MF: Do you take supplements?
Jones Jr.: I take iron, protein, potassium because I sweat a lot, just different things I think I might be missing.
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