Close call, but Jones takes title

After a long night in which Jones often looked befuddled, occasionally in trouble and tired throughout the second half of the fight, two judges made him the WBC light heavyweight champion again with a majority decision over Antonio Tarver.

Glen Hamada scored the fight, 117-111, while Dave Harris scored it 116-112 for Jones. Jerry Roth saw it as a 114-114 draw. The Globe card had Jones winning, 115-113, giving him three of the final four rounds as Tarver spent too much time posing and too little time punching.

"I can't worry about what they do outside the ring," Tarver (21-2) said after losing his title. "I know I won the fight hands down. All you have to do is look at his face."

Although Tarver's trainer, Buddy McGirt, had talked of his fighter's need to exhibit controlled aggression throughout the night, there was little of aggression in the early going and not enough of it in the late rounds. While Tarver stood in front of Jones for long minutes, Jones at least was moving his hands. In the end, it was that, plus Jones's reputation, that swept the title away from Tarver.

"I guess he won the last 30 seconds of the round but that isn't good enough," Jones said. "I was winning the first two minutes and he was winning the last 30 seconds. The guy came out and fought his best fight but his strategy was to win the last 30 seconds and you can't win a fight that way. I take my hat off to him but you need to win three minutes."

Actually, you need to win seven rounds, which Jones barely did. A case could be made that Tarver had done the same because the bout was close in the eyes of everyone but Hamada.

Regardless, Tarver was also his own worst enemy because of the amount of time he chose to neither punch nor move.

Both posed until Tarver finally attacked in the last few seconds of Round 2 and backed Jones into the ropes with a flurry of punches that did no real damage. That pattern repeated itself in many of the rounds thereafter, with Jones scoring early and pressing the action while Tarver would come on late, pinning Jones in the corner and landing the more telling blows.

McGirt feared Jones would eventually break down his fighter mentally even though physically he was doing little but feinting and occasionally whistling some wild punches in the champion's direction. For some reason that seemed to work for a time as Tarver all but stopped throwing punches in Round 4. Jones responded by landing several power shots until Tarver finally went after him on the ropes and again strafed his body with several flurries. The last one ended with Tarver shouting at Jones to fight and Jones responding by charging him at the bell.

In Round 6, Tarver even declined to punch on two opportunities when Jones had pinned himself into the corners. The second time, Jones, sensing hesitancy on the part of his opponent, shot out of the corner and nailed Tarver with the two best right hands of the night. Neither did serious damage.

In Round 7, Tarver showed his first flurries since the second round, attacking Jones in the corners. Jones appeared to be looking for chances to rest, perhaps starting to feel the effect of having to be in the sauna from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. the day of the weigh-in to steam off the remaining suet from the 25 pounds he had dropped to get back to the 175-pound light heavyweight limit.

"That was a hard 25 of sweat to lose," said Jones, now 49-1. "It was difficult for me. I got very tired because of the weight [loss]."

As Jones wilted, Tarver did not press him enough and the crowd began to chant and clap, longing for a fight to break out where there had been little more than polite debate through the first eight rounds. Then, suddenly, Tarver went to work and Jones seemed to tire noticeably.

Only three fighters in boxing history had ever gone down from heavyweight champion to successfully win a title at a lower weight and it did not appear Jones would be the fourth as his left eye began to puff. Jones understood he was in a fight and his response was to attack the still-too-hesitant Tarver in the last two rounds. Although he did no apparent damage, he did just enough to leave the arena with Tarver's belt and the echo of a booing crowd in his ears.