With another mandatory defense scheduled for Saturday in Portland, Oregon, light heavyweight champion Roy Jones says he's ready for Clinton Woods despite another unknown challenger with dubious credentials. In a Monday morning teleconference call with national media, Jones explained his position on a variety of subjects and expounded on his approach to the game of boxing, both in the ring and at the negotiating table. 

Originally hoping to pit Jones against Vassily Jirov, HBO's efforts at the match broke down for numerous reasons. Woods took Jones to court to force his mandatory shot; and HBO's offer of a half-million more for the light heavyweight king to take on the IBF cruiserweight champ was not satisfactory, in his estimation. 

"They only offered me a half million more to fight Jirov than Woods. Why would I do that? I don't think (Woods) did a damned thing to earn a shot at me. They threatened to strip me and I'm not gonna give up my titles like that. I cannot help it. I love being champion," Jones said.

When pressed about the recent decision of Marco Antonio Barrera to fight sans belts, Roy was diplomatic but unbending in the suggestion that he do the same. 

"I'm not trying to be Barrera. He's a great champion and he does what he does. That works for Barrera. It don't work for Roy." 

Jones recently admitted that what he knows of his challenger isn't much, but it is enough.

"His ass is in trouble," went the refrain. "Anybody can bring you your lunch every day. I take it dead serious. Watch me next week. I don't be playin'." 

Woods figures to be in deep water. His 32-1 record is a masterpiece of careful matchmaking. Few of his foes have less than a half-dozen losses, at least, and those that don't have scant more wins than those defeats. Essentially, his career has been a series of tune-ups for other tune-ups.

Jones could possibly be distracted by the lure of bouts with Bernard Hopkins, Jirov, John Ruiz, his music career, his acting bug, his love of fighting cocks, or any of a million things; however he would probably still be even-money contemplating all these while fighting Woods on a skateboard (imagine Tony Hawk in Roy's corner between rounds… yet another commercial duo with lucrative advertising possibilities).  

The Hopkins bout is still theoretical at best, and Jones still poo-poos the feasibility of such a bout for many reasons, most of all, the fact that nobody mentions the weight they're supposed to be fighting at (a salient-if-overlooked factor mentioned in last week's Neutral Corner). 

"That's exactly it," Jones crossly replied when asked about poundage limit. "That's what nobody's talking about. That psycho was talking 'bout it in Puerto Rico and he never mentions it. Nobody's telling me what weight I'm gonna be fighting at. The most I could do is 168 the day before the bout."

Given that Hopkins once insisted that super middleweight foe Syd Vanderpool reach a day-of 160-pound weight, it's not likely he'd be willing to let Jones come into the ring at 180-plus pounds after reaching 168.

Jones concludes that the math is simple. He offered Hopkins $6 million to fight him.

"That's more than his next biggest purse against Trinidad," said Roy ($3 million, but who's counting?). Hopkins can take it or leave it. 

"Hopkins asking for 10 million is the best way to say no without saying no, you dig?' Jones concluded. "But nobody will write that. Why do Roy got to be the one to give everybody a chance and help them make money?" 

The prospects for a Dariusz Michalczewski bout are "$20-25 million to fight him in Germany. After what happened in Korea, that's what I need. He barely beat Richard Hall. They can say linear all they want to. Who got a win over James Toney, Reggie Johnson, Vinny Pazienza, and Hopkins? He don't wanna fight these guys." 

Forced to periodically win fights with one hand, or take mustard off his punches to preserve a marginal one, Jones didn't sweat the possibility of something going awry this weekend in the Rose Garden, where the bout has aroused a good deal of local interest in the Pacific Northwest.  

"Nothing can stop me. My hands can't stop me," he said. "The only thing that can stop me is God." 

In the best case scenario, Jones sees himself fighting 3-4 more years if the big fights he wants come off. If he keeps hitting the negotiating wall, though, and can't get some compelling bouts, he'll finish out his HBO contract and call it quits in 2 years.  

"God blessed me with this. There's a lot of people that wish they could find what God blessed them with. To be in this position it's like, damn, look what God gave you. I'm not gonna sit on this, I'm gonna go to work with it," Jones said. "For me not to give my all would be a sin."