This past weekend Roy Jones moved up in class to take John Ruiz's WBA heavyweight title. He also moved up in class as a pay-per-view attraction.

"The Ruiz-Jones pay-per-view event generated 525,000 pay-per-view buys in the United States and $26.5 million of pay-per-view revenue," said Mark Taffet of HBO Pay-Per-View. "Which exceeds the performance of both the Trinidad-Hopkins fight and the Lewis-Rahman II. Which were our benchmarks going into this event, so we are thrilled with the performance of the fight.

"Like Roy Jones, who moved up from light heavyweight, at the beginning of the week, we were looking at light heavyweight numbers and fortunately by the time March 1st rolled around, like Roy Jones, the pay-per-view figures look like a heavyweight."

The numbers are especially strong in light of the fact that Mike Tyson and his shenanigans overshadowed this event coming in and Jones wasn't particularly cooperative in promoting the fight.

"I had said all along and this was the opposite of the question that was asked to me all week long during fight week, which was: 'Why is the performance so poor and why is Roy not promoting it?'. And I said 'Wait until Saturday, March 1st, and see what happens and then we'll draw conclusions.

"The pay-per-view business today is an electronic arena and it is primarily through electronic media," Taffet, explained further. "We doubled and redoubled our efforts in the electronic media -- television, radio and repurposing video that we had shot with Roy all throughout the promotion from training camp to the press conferences. So we had a consistent package of fresh and relevant video and audio that we could send out electronically and I believe that significantly enhanced the pay-per-view results."

And now in the aftermath of his victory, Jones, who for years had a dearth of big fights in his present or future, has a plethora of fights he could make from heavyweight on down.

"Whether it be a unification with Chris Byrd, a potential fight with Evander Holyfield, a fight against the Jirov-Toney winner at the cruiserweight or heavyweight level or even moving down to face someone like Bernard Hopkins," said Taffet, who was giddy over the pay-per-view numbers. "Roy Jones has plenty of attractive opportunities in front of him and the world is his oyster."

PAYING MY BET

I made a bet with Kery Davis of HBO Sports, and a huge Jones advocate, that Jones-Ruiz wouldn't do more than 300,000 buys. And yes, I do realize that the numbers on pay-per-view shows are most of the time, trumped up-for instance, the 525,000 being put out by HBO, could really mean between 450,000 and 475,000. But it's clear, this event did well over my puny figure.

I pay my bets, so Kery, I owe you a steak dinner. I just hope you choose Sizzler or something like that.

We're doing ok here at MaxBoxing, but we aren't making a killing quite yet.

I must've forgot.