Roy Jones came into the Thomas & Mack Center this past Saturday night sporting his retro Michael Jordan 'Carolina baby blue gear. It was appropriate since Jones has an endorsement deal with the Jordan Brand and in winning the WBA heavyweight title from Johnny Ruiz, he not only made history by becoming the first middleweight in over a hundred years to win a heavyweight title, he also cemented his reputation as the game's best pound-for-pound fighter. He is boxing's Jordan.

In the past few years Jones had taken heat -- and deservedly so -- for taking on a string of mis-mandatory 'challenges' that left critics questioning his courage and fortitude. But with his dominant win over 'the Quietman', even some of his most ardent detractors were lining up to praise him.

Lou DiBella, who while the boxing czar HBO, regularly butted heads with Jones over his career path, was asked if he was won over just a little bit by the sparkling performance Jones put on.

"A lil' bit?" DiBella rhetorically gushed at the question. "I mean, he's the best heavyweight in the world. Pound-for-pound, he's the best fighter -- they don't even need a pound-for-pound list. He's that good. And it was a brilliant performance. I thought he was going to win ugly and he won beautifully and he won as a real heavyweight, as a real fighter, as the aggressor. I thought it was time capsule, Hall-of-Fame stuff."

And DiBella added, "It also shows that the difference between 30 pounds in a guy's weight doesn't make up for the difference between brilliance and mediocrity."

Which can't be overlooked. This was not a good small man beating a good big man. Or David toppling Goliath. This was Jordan dunking on Greg Ostertag over and over again. But that shouldn't discount his win according to Larry Merchant, who was ringside for HBO Pay-Per-View, calling the action.

"Roy took the risk of fighting a big man and made the big man look like all the smaller men that he's beaten," said Merchant, a frequent critic of Jones in the past. "It's hard to say what it does for his legacy. Obviously it will help him. I've never been a big fan of John Ruiz as a fighter or as a so-called champion, but it's a significant victory and let's see what he does from here on out.

"Maybe he's just so good that we're never going to get to look under that gleaming hood to see what's there because nobody can seem to put him to that place. But in terms of his quickness of his mind and his fists, he is exceptional. There's just not been many fighters like him."

One guy who always thought Jones was that good is ESPN2's Max Kellerman.

"He's still impossible to rate because he's never been tested but when was the last time he really lost an amateur fight, really? How long has it been?" asks Kellerman. "He turned pro in '88 -- he won in the Olympics and they robbed him. How many ROUNDS has he lost since then? Forget about the percentage of his fights, how many actual rounds?

"He is at least the most dominant fighter whoever lived, although his level of opposition clearly isn't what Ray Robinson's was, for instance. But Ray Robinson never fought a heavyweight. Not that Ruiz is a great fighter but he's a top five heavyweight. Roy Jones played with John Ruiz, pitched a virtual shutout and turned a heavyweight into a typical Roy Jones opponent: a non-competitive opponent."

OK, maybe what some of what 'Mad Max' is saying is true, but let me get the 'mute' button out for a second as I go 'Round the Horn.' Perhaps Ruiz was chosen because Jones knew what he was getting: a typical opponent who had no chance of really winning. Hell, that's a large part of the reason I picked Jones to win. But Ruiz -- outside of a few cheerleaders in the Boston media -- was never that highly thought of by most boxing observers. He was among the most heavily criticized and least respected heavyweight titlists in the history of the sport.

With overwhelming way he lost, Ruiz is an indictment on the current state of the heavyweight division. (What does this say about Kirk Johnson?) Think about it, right now two-thirds of the heavyweight crown are held by Jones and another 'David', Chris Byrd. So much for these hulking 'new millennium' heavyweights, huh? Put it this way, does Ruiz beat guys like Jerry Quarry, Jimmy Young, Jimmy Ellis and Earnie Shavers of the '70s or even the Tony Tuckers, Michael Dokes and Tim Witherspoons of the '80s? To many, those are rhetorical questions.

"I knew that Roy was far the better fighter, what I didn't now was how bad Ruiz was," said Kevin Iole, boxing reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a special guest columnist for MaxBoxing, who picked Ruiz to beat Jones beforehand. "That's not to take anything away from Roy because I think he fought a superb fight. He fought the right tactical fight and he showed his tremendous skill. But Ruiz did not have either the game plan or the skills to pull it off. I thought that at least he was going to go out there and try to brawl with Roy Jones and he never really tried. He's blaming the referee but I think that just crying a day late and a dollar short."

Also, the supposed disparity in weight wasn't as great as many had perceived coming into this bout. Jones was a rock solid 199 pounds -- and he didn't seem to lose any of his trademark quickness and speed -- while Ruiz came in relatively light at 226. And it was clear that Jones took Ruiz's punches much better than Ruiz took Jones'. The bottom line is, the clearly superior fighter, regardless of size, won the fight.

Marc Ratner, the executive director the Nevada State Athletic Commission, has seen a few fights in his day. He clearly thought he saw something special.

"Oh, this was the most historic performance that I've seen," he said at the post-fight presser. "Just a one-sided fight, I thought Roy fought magnificently, it turned out to be wonderful night."

It was, for boxing and for Roy Jones. But let's not go overboard.

BYRD'S EYE VIEW IN REVIEW

Chris Byrd has a future in analyzing fights. In last week's '15 Rounds' he correctly stated that if the fight's pace slowed that it would clearly favor Jones. Which is what precisely happened as Jones was able to keep the fight in the middle of the ring for long stretches at a time without being pushed backward and he was able to pick and choose when he could pot-shot Ruiz.

"What I was saying about the slow pace," explained Byrd, the current IBF heavyweight titlist, "it's the tale of two fights, if John Ruiz could keep the pressure on and not get frustrated and slow down, he has a great chance at winning. After the first round, it slowed down. It's a simple fight for him (Jones) and when you start making him think about throwing punches, and John was thinking about throwing punches, it's over."

They say speed kills, and Jones was a homicidal maniac against the plodding, herky-jerky Ruiz. It seemed that Ruiz was spooked by Jones' speed and oftentimes afraid of being countered and he threw less and less jabs as the fight went on.

"Forget the jab," said Byrd. "You need to put on pressure. You jab your way in for sure but you constantly go forward. You don't go against a guy with ultimate skills like that and sit back and wait. You don't have time to wait because this guy is killing you and the jab wasn't landing, [Jones] took his jab away and the fight was over."

It was almost farcical to see Ruiz out in the center of the ring, standing still, trying to match wits with Jones with feints and counters.

"It's crazy," said Byrd, at the thought. "I'm not an aggressive brawler. I'm not a guy that comes forward like a Mike Tyson, David Tua and he's out there trying to out box Roy Jones? I don't get it. My father would have smacked me so hard or he would've stopped the fight -- he would've been embarrassed because he knows I know better than to do the things that a guy like Roy can do. Trying to outmatch him is something I can't do. It was sad."

BYRD VS RJ?

It's highly unlikely that Jones will fight Byrd. It says here that for Jones, bouts against Evander Holyfield or even a Mike Tyson are more enticing and lucrative -- but this is how Byrd sees a match-up against RJ.

"It would be the ultimate fight, me fighting Roy," he said. "What you've seen tonight, it would be the flip-side. You wouldn't see Roy landing punches like that, we know that. And we would make each other think about throwing every single punch we throw."

It would be a chess match indeed. The problem is, have you actually ever seen people play chess? It really isn't all that exciting. Byrd-Jones would be a feint-fest of epic proportions.

STINKY WRIGHT?

No, Winky hasn't gotten to the Derrick Gainer-level of boring people on Roy Jones undercards, but he certainly didn't help his case for landing a fight with Oscar De La Hoya anytime soon in dispatching of the game JC Candelo.

Wright is what he is: highly skilled, efficient, well-schooled and tough. But he simply doesn't bring excitement to the dance and he hasn't grasped the concept that in his particular case, winning, simply isn't enough. There is a showbiz element to this sport.

De La Hoya, because of his skills and marketability, will always be an 'A'-side to a big event. Shane Mosley, because of his exciting style but lack of box-office appeal, is an ideal 'B'-side. Wright, with neither an exciting style or the ability to bring people into the tent, coupled with the fact he's a southpaw, is a 'C'-side. As in, "C"-ya later, we don't ever have to face you, if you're Oscar De La Hoya or Bob Arum.

FINAL FLURRIES

Don King is known for his marathon-like undercards. This past one in Las Vegas, started at two in the afternoon, and it featured some interesting results: Alex Garcia, a young Mexican banger, made a name for himself by blowing out Santiago Samaniego. And then Ezra Sellers would out-slug Jason Robinson in an exciting two round cruiserweight tilt... Vonda Ward should go back to posting up on the low block instead of boxing. I wonder what Pat Summitt thought of that performance?... It's official, Mo Harris is Lloyd 'Sweet Pea' Daniels... I don't care what conflicts of interests may be going on in Nevada, but all I can say is this, if every fight from here on out is held at the Mandalay Bay -- where the K9's play -- you won't hear me complaining.