Roy Jones Jr. says Xander Zayas “waved the flag” in the seventh round against Jaron Ennis and placed the blame on the corner for not stopping the fight two rounds earlier when it should have been halted.
Jones spoke to All The Smoke Fight.
I thought he fought a great fight for up to, I say round five. Had they stopped it in round five, you saved him from having to do what he had to do in round seven. Come round seven, his body was so banged up, his will got broken. When your will get broken, you give up. Had they stopped in the fifth round as they should have, we wouldn’t have to see him go through that. But they didn’t.
Jones made clear he does not blame Zayas personally for the stoppage.
He didn’t quit because he looked at the corner, he quit because them body shots were on him and he couldn’t get away from them. That’s why he quit. He waved the flag. He did the right thing to wave the flag because his corner didn’t care enough to get him out of there, so he had to wave the flag. I don’t blame him because it ain’t worth dying about once you see you can’t beat this dude.
His sharpest words were directed at Zayas’s team.
You got to save your fighter yourself from him having to wave the flag. He shouldn’t have had to throw the flag in. But because y’all didn’t save him, y’all forced him to have to throw the flag in.