There is sporting injustice and then there is what happened to Roy Jones Jr. at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
The boxing legend was only 19 years old and the youngest member of the US team when he dominated everyone before him to reach the 71kg gold medal final and start a showdown with local hopefuls Park Si-Hun.
What happened in the decision maker could only be described as another complete supremacy – even to the untrained eye. Jones landed a whopping 86 punches on Park’s 32 and the South Korean made two standing eight counts while also receiving two warnings from the umpire.
Still, three of the five judges felt it appropriate to award Park the bout that has come to be known as arguably the most brazen heist in boxing history.
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Jones Jr, who will step into the ring with legend Mike Tyson in a vaunted exhibition match in Las Vegas this weekend, contemplated the loss of a recent episode of the Joe Rogan podcast.
Rogan describes the Seoul farce as “perhaps the worst decision I’ve seen in my life,” and says Jones Jr. is clearly “done.” Even Koreans pestered Park during the medal ceremony and in the months and years after it.
“It wasn’t a question, there was no debate. I have never seen a single person argue that they won. It was all you, ”said Rogan.
Jones Jr., who would later become one of the most successful and beloved professional boxers in history, insists that it only took him a day to find the silver lining. After facing his rival backstage.
“I went back and asked the interpreter to ask him if he really hit me. Because if he said yes – he didn’t know that – he would bring himself to his knees, ”said Jones Jr.
“But he said, ‘No, I know I didn’t win, but it wasn’t my fault, it was the judges. ‘
“I shook his hand, left, and never felt bad about him again for not doing it.
“But then I also realized … what God was doing was take the negative (the judge) and turn it into a positive and see where I am now?”
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“It (the support I received) was a beautiful thing, and most of all, that’s the blessing for me.
“For me it was God’s way of getting me not to idle my life, but to drive myself up.
“I had no idea what he was doing, but that’s why you just trust in God and look at me now.”
The time wasn’t so kind to Park, who recently spoke in an interview with AP about the “hardened grudges I will likely bear for the rest of my life.”
Park retired after the Games and more than three decades on his gold medal are still seen as a smear of what many consider to be the nation’s coming-out party for the world.
“I didn’t want my hand to be raised (after the fight with Jones), but it went up and it made my life grim,” said Park, now 54.
“… I keep thinking about how my life would have been happier if I had finished second. A gold medal is important, but isn’t an Olympic medal satisfying and glorious? “
Jones Jr would argue. He has never worn his silver one since it warped through the painful medal ceremony in Seoul.
“It hurt boxing, especially amateur boxing,” said Jones. “It hurt because you took a 19-year-old child, clearly defeated his rival, and you robbed him?
“It removes the integrity of this sport, and you still don’t go back and fix it. To date, no one has come back and tried to fix the problem. “
Whether boxing’s integrity has recovered is up for debate, but Jones Jr’s reputation and development since that day has not – ‘Iron’ Mike will have to overcome a man this weekend who is still suffering from one of the greatest injustices in the Sports is steeled.
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