After getting by Tarver, Roy Jones wants Tyson

Dean Juipe

Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 | 9:43 a.m.

By managing his own career and not relying on a specific promoter, Roy Jones Jr. has streamlined the process of getting fights. He's his own man.

So when Jones says he wants to fight Mike Tyson, there's a better than average chance he can get it done.

But, to do it, Jones will not only have to consent to allowing promoter Don King to handle the fight, he will have to get Tyson to do the same. In the latter's case, beyond the dislike Tyson carries for King, both he and King would have to set aside the differences that led to their mutual $100-million lawsuits against the other.

If Jones says he can't get it done, he may retire.

"If I don't get Mike Tyson next, I'm done," he said Saturday after defeating light-heavyweight rival Antonio Tarver by majority decision at Mandalay Bay. "One megadollar heavyweight fight with Tyson and then I'm done."

Jones, 34, appears to have tired of the rigors of moving between divisions, having struggled to make the light-heavyweight division limit of 175 pounds for his fight with Tarver. Feeling sapped, he failed to display the usual lightning combinations and attack that made him the mythical "pound for pound" champion and world's greatest fighter.

Jones won by 6 and 4 points on two of the judges' cards, while the third had the fight even.

"I won the fight hands down," Tarver protested at the post-fight press conference. "His face tells the story."

Appearing unnaturally puffy, Jones did look the worse of the two. Yet he blamed it on the effects of weight loss -- he was coming down from the 200 pounds he weighed for a bout with heavyweight John Ruiz in March -- and congratulated himself for winning the fight under difficult conditions.

"It was a tough fight because of the weight," he said. "I was fighting the first two minutes of every round and he was trying to win the last 30 seconds of the round. That was his strategy. But you can't win a fight winning only 30 seconds of a round."

Hogwash, Tarver said.

"I exposed the great Roy Jones," he said. "His bubble has definitely burst. I won this fight. I beat the fighter that you all call the best fighter in the world."

While Tarver surrendered his World Boxing Council light heavyweight title with the loss, he remains in the mix and is apt to be back in a title fight next time out. Also 34, he's 21-2 and newly decorated even with this close defeat.

He wants a rematch with Jones and may get one, even though Jones is suggesting that it's Tyson or bust.

Jones, 49-1, would not seem to be able to fight Tyson without getting King involved. For starters, King -- as promoter of the Jones vs. Ruiz fight -- retains an option on Jones' next fight as a heavyweight.

Then there is the matter of the King vs. Tyson and Tyson vs. King lawsuits that clog a New York court. Those dueling suits, which were set to be heard in September but were later postponed, pit the promoter against the former heavyweight champion in action(s) that promise any number of legal fireworks and posturing.

Tyson has sworn that he won't fight under King again.

Now it's up to Jones to convince him to do otherwise.