Fight Night Round 4 was the best of the series bar none
absolutely loved that game. Must have made a few dozen boxers on career mode and won the world title numerous times. If I wasn't doing that
I was playing as Rocky Marciano and I almost always retired undefeated.
Anyways
back to Byrd/Jones. Lennox Lewis gave up his IBF championship on the HOPE for a multi-million dollar clash with Roy Jones. Don King set up an elimination tournament in which Ruiz would fight Jones, and Holyfield would fight Byrd.
It was HOPED that Jones would win his end of things (which he did) and that Holyfield would beat Byrd and that'd set up Jones-Holyfield to legitimize his heavyweight experiment (and Evander failed to do so).
Byrd couldn't draw flies around a bucket of horse piss. He may have been Jimmy Young incarnate, minus Jimmy's willingness to mix it up now and then, but he was just as hated as John Ruiz for their boring, dull, slow, predictable, matches.
I remember either RING MAGAZINE or KO MAGAZINE doing an article once saying that the writers worst dream would be a Ruiz-Byrd fight, and lamented how Ruiz kept winning WBA titles, and said he had a nightmare Don King did a Clockwork Orange on him making the poor bastard watch countless Ruiz matches trying to brainwash him into believing The Quiet Man was the true heavyweight champion of the world.
Yeah, heavyweight boxing then was a complete and total horror show.
Anyways... Needless to say the "elimination tournament" never finished... For a time Holyfield-Jones was talked about REGARDLESS that he lost to Byrd, which goes to show how corrupt the ratings were back then too.
Poor Byrd just drifted and drifted, until he rematched Wladimir Klitschko and got the stupid idea in his head of standing toe to toe with the giant Ukrainian... One of the most devastating knockouts I ever seen: Byrd's nose literally exploded upon impact. Poor bastard.
Jones, talked and talked about being a real heavyweight but he convinced nobody but the casual fans. He out priced himself against Mike Tyson demanding $100 million dollars, and it was more than clear he wasn't being serious (at the time Lewis-Tyson was the highest purse ever of like $35 million a piece, so for new readers who see $100+ million dollars a piece today you'll understand the context of what I'm saying cus it was clearly a way of saying he didn't want the fight).
Now... Had the elimination tournament went on as planned... Jones-Byrd... I'll be honest, I think Jones would have only won because of a gift decision robbery... Byrd was boring as hell, yes, but I think he was slightly quicker and more elusive than Jones and in this situation probably the harder puncher.
I think such a "win" would have tainted Jones heavyweight experiment, and the cat calls for Lewis to give Byrd an honorary title shot would have been uttered. Byrd and Ruiz both (IMHO) deserved a crack at Lewis, on merit, than some of the idiots who got title shots (Botha, for example). Then Jones could have tried to redeem himself by fighting someone (maybe Holyfield) and then could have fought Lewis.
But it is what it is. He wasn't a legitimate heavyweight. His "one off" night against Ruiz was more of a nuisance than anything else that disturbed the order of the division. Entertaining? Sure, if you like that sort of thing (one timers) but there could have been better fights staged rather than give Jones attention.
