I think it's about time we had a thread for all thing boxing related, especially with a couple of huge fights coming up. To start things off: an article from the Ring portraying the sad demise of a great, along with some other stuff.

http://www.ringtv.com/blog/971/jones...ing_us_with_th is_hook/

<h1>Jones not enticing us with this hook</span></h1>

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Posted Aug. 9, 2009 at 03:20pm

<h2>By William Dettloff</span></h2>

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In case you’ve missed it, Roy Jones and Jeff Lacy are fighting one
another Saturday night in Biloxi, Miss., on pay-per-view. Both guys
have seen better days; Jones because he’s 40, or thereabouts, and Lacy
because, well, depending on whom you ask, either Joe Calzaghe ruined
him or he never was much to begin with.



Whatever the case, it’s a reasonably interesting matchup that might
prove entertaining, and given the current state of the contestants,
it‘s not a big surprise that the fight came together: Who else is there
for them to fight?



What is surprising is that Jones showed up for the initial press
conference in full pirate regalia, including a plastic hook in place of
his left hand. The card is named “Hook City,” a reference to Lacy’s
left hook moniker and Jones’ own left hook, which was once one of the
most feared punches in the business. According to him, it still is.



“I have the best left hook in the game,” Jones said at the press
conference. “Jeff Lacy has a very good hook. So, when you get a
challenge like that, how can you say no? You can’t, not where I come
from. I don’t know any decent person who could, straight up.”



That Jones said this while in full pirate costume – while Lacy was
dressed appropriate to the century – is stunning, considering that in
his salad days, Jones was loathe to promote a fight at all and if he
showed up for press conferences, it typically was several hours late.



It’s evidence too of the lengths to which fighters will go to promote
themselves or an event, particularly if, as is the case here, the fight
hasn’t generated a great deal of buzz or isn‘t likely to, for whatever
reason.



Whole careers have been built around a fighter’s shtick. Think Hector
Camacho’s eccentricity, or Jorge Paez’s penchant for shaving public
service announcements into his scalp. Naseem Hamed’s act frightened and
appalled an entire generation of purists, but also made him a
millionaire several times over.



George Foreman embraced the fat, cheeseburger-eating, self-deprecating
persona thrust upon him by a suspicious media and made it work for him.
Bernard Hopkins’ executioner motif was memorable, and Ricardo Mayorga
still gets a little mileage out of his alleged cigarette habit.



Want more?



David Haye’s mouth and boorish behavior have gotten him opportunities
disproportionate to his accomplishments, and club fighter Emanuel
Augustus’ “Drunken Master” act has made him a cult hero. Of course,
legends Muhammad Ali and Archie Moore were using shtick to sell tickets
maybe before the word existed.



But does the show business stuff really work?



“Some think that a fighter who is willing to provide shtick is valuable
to a promotion. They figure that if he does something ridiculous
enough,