ROY

An older, slower, preoccupied Roy Jones Jr., is like an older, slower, preoccupied king cobra. There's still a lot of bite left if you're not careful, still enough juice to put you on your back.

In one of those glitzy Los Angeles extravaganzas, Jones (44-1, 36 KOs) takes on challenger Julio Gonzalez (27-0, 17 KOs) on July 28 in a world light-heavyweight championship at the Staples Center, home of Shaq, Kobe and the rest of the reigning NBA champions.

It's a fight no one is sure how to take. Too many Roy questions waiting to be answered. How serious is Roy? How old does Roy feel? How bad does Roy want to fight? How bad does Roy want to sing? Does Roy secretly wish he was a reigning NBA champ? Did Roy really sing in his rap video, ``Y'all Must Have Forgot'' ? What exactly was it that we forgot, Roy?

As for Gonzalez, he apparently has Superman ties. By day, he's a mild-mannered reporter working for a large metropolitan daily...No, wait. That's not it. But it's close. You get the idea. They say he's Mr. Rogers outside the ring and Atilla the Hun inside it. It's the old Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde syndrome, a common affliction among anonymous fighters looking for the bright lights of fame. It's not so much a gimmick as a tag line.

You haven't heard too much about Julio Gonzalez because Julio Gonzalez isn' t a real snappy name. It doesn't sing out like Six Heads or El Terrible. It's right up there with John Smith and Bill Johnson.

You also haven't heard of him because he hasn't been jailed recently, hasn't appeared on Letterman and hasn't beaten any of the fighters you know on a first-name basis. There are no Titos or Oscars or Shanes or Bernards on his resume because he's both too heavy and too smart. He hopes to hang a Roy Jr., scalp on his belt by the end of the month, but it's going to be a tough hunt.

Like heavyweight champion John ``Does anyone know me?'' Ruiz, Gonzalez has remained pretty much behind the curtain when they've flicked on the spotlight. He's one of those second-stringers who quietly learns the game while the first-stringers grow bored or complacent. Or, like Gonzalez claims, ``slower.''

``Oh, there's a difference (in Roy Jones),'' Gonzalez said on a recent conference call. ``Roy's style is the same, but he's older, throws less and less and he takes more. He's pretty predictable, actually.''

Yeah, he's pretty predictable all right. I predict he'll win.

While Gonzalez might not be a household name east of Fresno, they say he's a pretty big draw in California. That's because California, like Oz, is a kingdom unto itself. They don't have the same rules the rest of us live by. In California, everything important stops just before you cross the state line into Nevada or Arizona. They like their fighters to be Californians. Julio qualifies. He's from Huntington Beach. Probably surfs in his spare time.

What are Julio's chances? To quote the quotable Don King, who was commenting on a fight several years ago, his chances are "somewhere between slim and none and slim is out of town.'' Custer got better odds. Julio is a nice guy, but we all know where they finish.

Still, I remember this pug named Hasim Rahman. That's why we love fighting.

As for Julio, the only advice I would give him is this: Careful of the old man, Julio. Slow or not, the last thing to go is the bite.