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To many, Roy was their Superman, a man who could do the unthinkable inside the ring. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound, metaphorically speaking. He could throw combinations so blinding and so quick, that you would ask the person next to you after it was done, "Did you see that man...amazing!"
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Antonio Tarver was not supposed to be the one-person people wanted to see take down the legend. To some Tarver was just another guy, an opponent who would be Jones’s next dinner feast. Tarver was not just another guy though. He was a focused man, fighting on ESPN2 cards in their main events, waiting for his chance to slay the dragon. And when his opportunity came, he was not to be denied.
He knew in his heart of hearts that beating Jones was his destiny, and he tackled that challenge much like David slain Goliath. But to Tarver, he was not the underdog. He was the favorite. In his mind he was the chosen one, the one who was supposed to beat the great Roy Jones Jr.
Now that the dust has settled, and everything has come into focus, boxing fans know now, what they knew minutes after the knockout. To Jones fans it is painful, and to Jones haters it is ecstasy. Jones is hence beatable. There is no longer a myth behind the man. Now there is just a man, a very beatable man.
In boxing this is nothing new, before Jones there were others deemed unbeatable. Liston, Foreman, Frazier, Ali, Robinson, Armstrong, and the list could go on forever, all the way back to the bare knuckle days.
In the end we realize that unbeatable is a word that should not exist in our dictionaries. It is a word that should be a synonym of impossible. Because history and what happened May 15th have now shown us that there is no such thing as unbeatable, just beatable.
