Editor's Note: ESPN The Magazine contributor Tim Struby had complete access to Roy Jones Jr.'s locker room on Saturday. Here's his story of what happened behind closed doors both before and after Jones' historic victory over John Ruiz, earning him the WBA heavyweight crown.

LAS VEGAS -- Except for a scurrying television crew and a lone security guard standing watch, the hallway in the bowels of the Thomas Mack Arena is still. The heavy black door with the blue type reads "Roy Jones Jr." Walk inside and it is supernova bright, crisp white cinderblock walls and a searing red carpet lit up by the television lights. The main room holds 15 wooden lockers, and in another room to the left there are three sinks, three toilets, a training table and showers, all with the clean, antiseptic feel of big time college athletics. It is perfectly silent.

5:45: The door opens. They had all gone to watch the preliminary fights -- Alton, Alfred, Ronnie, Patrick, David, and Big Gabe -- and they are back, talking and laughing, their voices filling the empty space.

Everybody move your stuff to the corner, says Alton Merkerson. Coach Merc, they call him. "Make room for Roy." But he doesn't come. So they wait. They sit on the red folding chairs and watch more preliminaries on the 13-inch close-circuit television. The air is stagnant and heating up under the lights. A Nike camera crew sets up in the far corner. A man comes in to vacuum. Coach Merc tells a story. He is Clifford Ettienne, he stands up, mimes a swan dive and rolls on the floor. Howling laughter. Then there is more silence. More waiting. Minutes upon minutes that move like years. Eventually, two men enter and sit down. Then two more, making it a dozen.

6:30: A bolt of lightning.

Roy's here!

A minute later, decked out in an immaculate velour Tar Heels sweatsuit, a Jordan jersey underneath, he appears. Five others are in tow, donning hats and sweatsuits, one carries his bag, another a Bose boom box.

Instantly, everyone stands and applauds.

Champ!

Roy!

It's your night!

Roy sits. Everyone sits. Snoop Dogg croons out of the speakers. There are 20 people now -- Smoke, Doc, Rasheed, Shoe, Mario, Brad, Murad -- all his friends, his team, his family. But it is silent again. No one talks to him. They only glance his way, afraid perhaps, to see something in his eyes that they shouldn't. There is a whisper here and there but no real conversation. They merely stand around him, an aura of support. He is the total focus of the room, but now he is not to be focused upon. It is a tacit understanding; they have all been here before, and this day is no different.

Roy is loose. He sings softly. He shimmies in his chair. He watches the fights. He laughs, putting everyone at ease. They need comforting, reassurance. Not him. His face is cool. Methodically, he puts on his new white Nike boxing shoes, ties his cup into his shorts, puts his mouthpiece in and out. Like a priest before Communion, it is a ritual, perfectly paced -- slow and steady -- to keep his mind occupied, his hands busy. Mario rubs Vaseline on his chest, back, arms, head. He is bigger than he used to be.

7:00: An official scale is wheeled in. Lights flick on, cameras roll.

"199!" yells Coach Merc, as if they had just won the belt. Roy beams. Two hundred, he says, strutting around the locker room like one of his own roosters. The buzz is contagious -- talking, high-fiving, laughing.

7:30: Ebb and flow. It is quiet again. The stereo cranks out a chorus of "Made you look," but no one speaks. Roy slips on his shorts, laces his shoes and puts on the gold tassels. He watches the fights, stares intently, as if he, too, were in the ring. Perhaps he pictures himself just as he sees Winky Wright slip and throw, weave and fire. Then a strange thing happens. Ruiz's face appears onscreen for a pre-fight interview, and Roy turns away. He looks left, right, down, anywhere but at the face of his opponent on the screen. It's not from fear, you would see it in his eyes, his change in his countenance. He simply doesn't want to think of the man he is about to face because thinking about him affords the slightest possibility of doubt. That cannot happen. It will not happen. If Roy does not look at Ruiz, Ruiz does not exist.

The room gets even more crowded. There's less air, as if it were a vault. A Team Ruiz rep and several officials enter. Time to tape up. Roy sits down, drapes his right arm over a chair, while Coach Merc works with the precision of a surgeon. They watch. The ranks close, a core of belief, loyalty, support. More people, 50 total -- more supporters, a police officer, boxing official, the referee, even the governor of Nevada stops in to wish good luck. Some people leave. Others arrive.

7:45: The CD player goes silent.

"Pull it in," commands Coach Merc. "If you ain't in, you out of here."

A tight nucleus of bodies forms in the center of the locker room. Eyes close. Heads bow. Heavyweight Al "Ice" Cole, his ankle bandaged and his face swollen from a preliminary fight, leads the prayer. He prays for safety, for victory. A moment of silence.

"Time to go to work!"

"And the NEW heavyweight champion?"

The nucleus explodes outward. People yell, clap, hoot, whistle. Roy is now center stage, all eyes are on him in the middle of the room. It is the first act, and he smiles, shadow boxes, fires off that deadly left hook, that snapping jab. He keeps moving, prowling back and forth, parting his people like Moses and the Red Sea.

8:00: Quiet again. Roy sits on the chair. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

8:05: Roy yawns.

8:10: Roy leaps up like a firefighter who's just heard the alarm. There has been a knockout on the television, Oquendo flooring Harris. There is only one fight remaining. His fight. The robe goes on. A sip of orange drink. Shadow boxing, dancing. The energy builds. The room is a living creature, everything, everyone in it is connected. The heart is Roy. Gloves are slipped on.

"Eleven minutes!" yells an HBO producer.

"Let's go get it!" screams a voice from the crowd.

Again, they all move in around him, a wall of support from which he feeds.

"What time is it?" yells Coach Merc.

"Jones time!" scream Roy's disciples.

"Whose house is it?"

"Jones's house!"

"And the new?"

"Heavyweight champion of the world!"

8:15: The crowd is gone. Only a dozen remain, the corner, the team, a camera crew. They begin to clap in unison, faster and faster, like a racing pulse. Roy does not smile. He's here but he's not. At this moment he's somewhere else, the place where fighters go to find themselves, to find what it will take to step through those ropes again. It is a look without fear or reservation, but of pure determination.

8:25: "Two minutes!" Time slips away in an instant. Another sip of orange drink. A squirt of water on his head. Gloves pound together. Teeth clenched. Pacing back and forth. The music is low, and almost unnoticed, Roy leans into one of his corner men.

"I'm gonna kill him," he whispers.

8:27: It's time. Roy steps to the front, his people behind him. From the tunnel the crowd noise grows. The arena lights are ablaze. The cameras roll. Rapper Scarface sings his introduction. Roy walks out into the arena. There is a roar.

8:30: The waiting, the hardest part of the fight, is over.

Post-fight: Hail the new champion
9:45 p.m. It is loud. They stream in after the decision, the same jerseys, the same faces. But the faces that were serious earlier are all smiling.

The locker room is filled with excitement, an electric charge, like that before a surprise birthday party. They are whooping and jumping and shadow boxing and waiting. They are all waiting for him. They are waiting for their man to come back from the biggest victory of his life. Non-stop sound bounces off the cinderblocks.

"Nervous? Hell, no, we wasn't nervous!"

"You see he used two ways to fight -- like the rooster and then like the pit bull!"

"First the trainer got knocked out, then his fighter got beat up!"

There are commissioners, camera crews, family, friends, Team Jones, and even former Cowboy Emmitt Smith. They are all fired up.

"Tell Larry Merchant he can put that in his peace pipe and smoke it," says Smith. "You tell him I said that. And tell him to keep his sorry ass clichés in the box."

More people find their way to the locker room. It is hot and stuffy but no one notices. Yet it's not a crazed, out-of-control-champagne-flowing-World-Series celebration, but a deep, deep sense of satisfaction, a relief-laden euphoria, as if everyone must rest up for the real party.

It's been a tiring day. It starts to quiet a bit. But not for long.

"The champ is here!"

Wild applause and cheering ensues, and the new WBA heavyweight champion enters the locker room. He wears only his shorts, a brown velour hat with his initials, and the belt around his waist.

Save for a quarter-sized red spot on his chest, Roy looks as if he worked out with Billy Blanks instead of battled with a heavyweight champion. A former heavyweight champion.

There are hugs and high-fives and handshakes and more hugs. Everyone in the room gets a little something, a little moment. Cameras flash. Roy smiles a million-dollar smile as he happily stands for photos with his boys, his family. It's not work or public relation, but love.

Roy sits down. Someone takes off his shoes and socks. There is still one important part of the fight left.

"Just water for now," reminds a heavy-set commissioner sporting the standard maroon blazer. It's not like there's a drop of alcohol in the locker room anyway. "Let the doc check him out. We'll get the urine test, then I'll pay him. I got it right here."

It's right there on his clipboard. It's a white envelope. And after the doctor holds up a finger, looks in his eyes and asks how he is, and Roy says he's fine, the commissioner hands over that envelope for the evening's work -- a check for about $10 million dollars. Paid, on the spot. Not bad.

Roy cannot sit anymore. He's all energy. There's a gleam in his eyes. Now he's got Smoke and two other pals together, and he's telling them what happened, his version, like a kid who just scrapped on the playground.

All the while, he's talking and miming and remembering, re-enacting his favorite shots.

"He can't punch."

"Stoney can't beat me."

"I told you I'd jump him."

"When I hit him with that hard jab and all that s--- came out his nose, I said, 'I got this m------ f-----.' "

For 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20, it's the same. Hugs and smiles and photos. Someone whispers in Roy's ear, and he's bowled over laughing. Someone else hands him a phone. Another friend presents his daughter.

Roy cannot get enough; he could go on all night. But everyone is tired. Time to clear out and get to the press conference.

"All right," yells Coach Merc. "Let's clear out and give Roy some space. He's got to get showered and change."

The crowd files out, until, once again, there only a dozen close friends. His team, his crew. This is how he likes it. But standing in a towel, he doesn't want the moment to end.

The awaiting press conference isn't real; it's theatrics and clichés and hoopla. Roy doesn't like hoopla. There, in his white towel, he keeps telling his boys about the fight, blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute. He remembers everything, and wants to share it with them.

He doesn't care about sharing it with anyone else. But he has to. It's his job. So he walks to the showers in the next room, and just as he did an hour earlier, he finds himself alone. Happy ... healthy ... champion.