Roy Jones Jr.

This record was held previously by Jack Johnson, who also boxed for 33 years between 1897 until 1931 (12,231 days).

Roy Jones Jr. was born to a family with a boxing tradition.

His father, Roy Jones Sr., a Vietnam war veteran who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor after he rescued another soldier.

Jones Sr. was a middleweight boxer as well.

He is ranked by BoxRec as the 29th greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all time.

Roy Levesta Jones Jr. (born January 16, 1969) is an American professional boxer who holds dual American and Russian citizenship.

He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes, including titles at middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight, and is the only boxer in history to start his professional career at light middleweight and go on to win a heavyweight title.

Jones won the 1984 United States National Junior Olympics in the 119 lb weight division, the 1986 United States National Golden Gloves in the 139 lb division, and the 1987 United States National Golden Gloves in the 156 lb division.

As an amateur, he ended his career with a 121–13 record.

National Golden Gloves (139 lbs), Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 9–10, 1986:

Goodwill Box-offs (156 lbs), Caesars Tahoe, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, April 12, 1986:

Goodwill Games (139 lbs), Moscow, Soviet Union, July 5–20, 1986:

National Golden Gloves (156 lbs), Knoxville, Tennessee, April 17–18, 1987:

Junior World Championships (156 lbs), Havana, Cuba, June 26, 1987:

As an amateur boxer he represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics, winning a light middleweight silver medal after one of the most controversial decisions in boxing history.

U.S. National Championships (156 lbs), Olympic Sports Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado, March 29, 1988:

National Golden Gloves (156 lbs), Omaha, Nebraska, May 16–20, 1988:

Olympic Trials (156 lbs), Concord Pavilion, Concord, California, July 5–10, 1988:

Olympic Box-offs (156 lbs), Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada, July 16, 1988:

Jones represented the United States at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games in the 156-pound weight class, being the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic Boxing Team, where he won the silver medal.

Jones did not lose a single round en route to the final.

His quarterfinal match-up with Soviet boxer Yevgeni Zaytsev was the first U.S.–Soviet Olympic bout in 12 years (because each country had boycotted one Summer Olympics during that period).

The final was met with controversy when Jones lost a 2–3 decision to South Korean fighter Park Si-hun despite pummeling Park for three rounds, landing 86 punches to Park's 32.

Reportedly, Park himself apologized to Jones afterward and the Italian referee Aldo Leoni, while raising Park's hand, told Jones that he was dumbstruck by the judges' decision, murmuring: "I can't believe they're doing this to you."

One judge shortly thereafter admitted the decision was a mistake and all three judges voting against Jones were eventually suspended.

Marv Albert, calling the bout on American television for NBC, reported that two judges from Communist countries, Hungary and the Soviet Union, scored the bout in favor of Jones, while those from Morocco and Uruguay favored Park.

The fifth judge, from Uganda, scored the bout as a draw, leaving the outcome to be decided on other criteria.

Jones was awarded the Val Barker trophy as the best stylistic boxer of the 1988 games, which was only the third and to this day the last time in the competition's history when the award did not go to one of the gold medal winners.

The Val Barker trophy is awarded by the AIBA, an organization not directly connected with the Olympic authorities.

The incident led Olympic organizers to establish a new scoring system for Olympic boxing.

Jones currently has the longest professional career of any heavyweight boxing champion, having boxed for over 33 years since 1989 (12,384 days).

The Boxing Writers Association of America named him as the Fighter of the Decade for the 1990s.

The Ring magazine named Jones the Fighter of the Year in 1994, and the World Boxing Hall of Fame named him the Fighter of the Year for 2003.

He is also a three-time winner of the Best Boxer ESPY Award (1996, 2000, and 2003).

The U.S. Olympic Committee called for an investigation in 1996 after documents belonging to East Germany's Stasi secret police revealed reports of judges being paid to vote for South Korean boxers.

An official IOC investigation ending in 1997 found that, although the offending judges had been wined and dined by South Korean organizer's, there was no evidence of corruption in the boxing events in Seoul.

In 1999 he became the undisputed light heavyweight champion by unifying the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles.

During his prime, Jones was known for possessing exceptional hand speed, athleticism, footwork, explosiveness, punching power, movement and reflexes.

Jones is considered by many to be one of the greatest boxers of all time, pound for pound, and left his mark in the sport's history when he won the WBA heavyweight title in 2003, becoming the first former middleweight champion to win a heavyweight title in 106 years.

As of February 2018, Jones holds the record for the most wins in unified light heavyweight title bouts in boxing history, at twelve.