Pazienza Lets Devastating Jones Get Him Down and Finally Out : Boxing: Commanding super-middleweight champion is never threatened in gaining sixth-round TKO.

Roy Jones Jr., was the best pound-AND-pound fighter here Saturday night, rocketing shot after shot off Vinny Pazienza’s nose, cheeks, body and soul on the way to a devastating sixth-round technical-knockout victory.

For long moments, Pazienza, who had not suffered a knockout loss in his previous 45 fights, looked like a cornered and wounded animal, unable to escape Jones’ darting attack or even return punches against the International Boxing Federation super-middleweight champion.

Bloodied and battered, the challenger, a prohibitive underdog, stayed gamely upright for five rounds, though his cause was lost far earlier, absorbing the full power of Jones’ dominant hand-speed advantage.

In a bout that did not start until after midnight local time, the end began almost as soon as the sixth-round bell.

Less than a minute into the round, Jones landed a perfect left hook to the face, then a hard right that crumpled Pazienza forward to the floor. Clearly teetering, Pazienza went down again 30 seconds later, again stumbling forward.

Then, with only two seconds remaining in the round, Jones caught Pazienza with a right uppercut-left hook combination that sent Pazienza catapulting backward into the ropes.

Referee Tony Orlando stopped the bout as Pazienza (40-6) hit the canvas a third time before 11,748 at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, finishing a performance that will do nothing to diminish Jones’ claim to the throne of boxing’s best pound-for-pound fighter.

“What can I say, Roy’s a very good, very fast fighter,” Pazienza said. “I needed to be on the money tonight. I wasn’t. I just couldn’t get started.”

Pazienza, who returned after suffering a broken neck in an accident four years ago, tried to take away Jones’ speed in the early going by charging into Jones, but by the fourth round was either too tired or too demoralized to mount an offense.

Jones landed 173 punches, 63 more than the slower, shorter Pazienza threw, according to CompuBox Inc. statistics. Pazienza only landed 45 punches.

“He was a tougher competitor than I thought,” said Jones, who raised his record to 29-0 and recorded his 25th knockout. “He didn’t run, he stood in there.

“I was afraid I was going to hurt him at the end.”

Even after going down for the third time, Pazienza, his face streaked with blood and swollen all over, wanted to continue.

“I’m all right,” a groggy Pazienza told Orlando after the stoppage.

Only 10 seconds into the first round, the rhythm and the reality of the fight was established.

Pazienza came flying out of his corner, but got pummeled with a left-right combination and barely avoided hitting the canvas. Pazienza took a couple more hard rights, then flurried briefly in the middle of the round when he trapped Jones against the ropes.

But momentary flurries--which resulted in mostly body shots that Jones easily blocked or head shots that Jones easily avoided--were all Pazienza could muster.

After every Pazienza moment, Jones would pick up the pace again and blood would flow.

Pazienza appeared to jar Jones for the first time late in the round, which seemed to alert the champion, who screamed at Pazienza for several seconds after the bell.

By the third round, Jones’ parade of sizzling punches began to take its toll, and Pazienza’s face began to bleed in several places, including his nose and mouth.

“I was in complete control,” Jones said, “from the beginning and for the entire fight.”

After Jones rocked the challenger with a short left in the opening seconds of the third, Pazienza spread his arms in a mock challenge. Jones answered with a brutal flurry that almost floored Pazienza again.

In the fourth, slipping from contention under a blistering Jones barrage that met almost no challenge, Pazienza was bleeding from his nose and several welts on his cheeks.

Jones landed a huge left hook to the challenger’s head late in the round that clearly dazed Pazienza, who then began to stick out his tongue in what appeared to be a combination of pride and pain.

With Jones’ corner yelling, “Teach him a lesson, Roy!” the destruction continued into the middle rounds, with Pazienza landing one or two punches a round against Jones’ three- and four-punch combinations.

In an earlier title bout on the card, despite suffering a cut over his right eye, IBF cruiserweight champion Al Cole successfully defended his title with a unanimous decision over Uriah Grant (23-11).