I was all set to sit down with my late night (early morning at this point) stomach ache, and I wanted to write an article about Danny Green, the Aussie slugger that more or less finished off Roy Jones Jr. in 122 seconds on Wednesday in Sydney.
Something like, "Danny Green: The Man That Killed the Rematch," though hopefully, a bit punchier (pardon the pun).
So I went around looking at local Aussie articles to see what all Green had to say while basking in the glow of his massive victory. While those of us in the States have seen Roy as damaged goods for years, and many have even seen him as just plain shot, Jones' star was still of great power in Australia, where the American icon reportedly earned about $10 million for his trouble.
After all, he's Roy Jones Jr., and while Australia has been promoting some big domestic fights for a while now, this was something different. An event. A legend coming to town. Roy Jones Jr.!
And Danny Green knocked him out.
Danny Green's a hard-working guy. He seems like he's strong in character in a classic, Western movie sort of way. Not a man you'd want to cross, but not a man out to cross anyone deliberately himself.
But the events...
The "events" have led Green's team to targeting frankly absurd fights with 47-year old Evander Holyfield and even 43-year old Mike Tyson. Oh yes -- there's Tyson's name again.
Green's trainer Angelo Hyder had this to say:
''We need fights that will stop the public and I have no doubt of that … we saw it with Roy Jones,'' Hyder said. ''Last year he [Holyfield] fought Nikolay Valuev for his WBA heavyweight title fight and he lost a tough bout on points … that says something. Getting Evander Holyfield - the former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world - to fight Danny will capture the world's attention.''
...
''Boxing needs fights that excite and inspire. If we can bring Mike Tyson out of retirement, he'll be an opponent for Danny, too. You can't tell me people wouldn't want to see that. Before Danny came out of retirement we considered fighting John Hopoate for his Australian heavyweight title and Sam Peter, The [Nigerian] world heavyweight champion, so he is prepared to move up.
''Another possible opponent is [former IBF world cruiserweight champion] James Toney. You can see their spar from a few years ago on YouTube when Toney was a heavyweight and Danny was a lot smaller. There's a possible high-profile fight.''
Needless to say, my stomach ache did not improve upon the reading of this piece.
Green, who can still make 175 pounds probably, has turned down the very idea of fighting Chad Dawson. "Bigger fish to fry," he says.
"Bigger" is right if he's looking at Holyfield, Tyson, Toney or Peter. Holyfield is 47 years old. Toney hasn't been a legitimate contender in years. Peter has been toiling with tomato cans and journeymen since Vitali Klitschko humbled him in 2008, as Top Rank looks to rebuild his career seemingly from the ground up. And Mike Tyson is a fat old man who by most accounts has no real desire to ever fight again, and probably fought the last five or six fights of his career without that desire, too.
I want to like Danny Green. I want to celebrate his victory, because it was a big moment for Australian boxing. I'm not Australian, don't personally know any Aussies, and have no ties to the culture at all. But I love when boxing thrives no matter where it is, and Green's win was the sort of thing that can truly kickstart interest in the sport in a country, and as I said before, Australia has had some big fights in recent years already.
But the names they're throwing out... come on. "Legacy"? It might grow domestically with a sideshow fight against Holyfield, who is zeroing in on his AARP membership, but outside of his homeland, no one will care. Jones, for all his faults as a fighter anymore, was still a top 10, maybe top five guy at light heavyweight coming into the fight. Holyfield is in Taco Bell ads, waiting for someone to give him his umpteenth crack at winning another "world title."
Gary Shaw (Dawson's promoter) said, "If his claim to fame is that he beat an old man, and he can go to sleep happy with that, then good on him, let him do that."
That's pretty much where I am. Again, all due respect to Danny Green. He may well have put a legendary fighter -- and still a pretty decent boxer in his own right -- out to pasture with a stunning TKO. But if he's looking at legacy and seeing Evander Holyfield and James Toney in his sights, it's clear how he defines "legacy."