Roy Jones vs Antonio Tarver

Tarver was Jones's IBF mandatory in 2000. Instead of fighting him Jones wrote letters to the IBF demanding that they force Tarver into a eliminator against Harding. Jones never did that against unworthy challengers like Brannon, Wood and Kelly

 

Jones was just coming off his biggest win and you say he was past his peak.
Sure I think Jones was weakend by having to shed muscle to get down to LHW.
Jones said it took his body a long time to recover.
I think the last time Jones fought Tarver he could have won but seemed a bit nervous from previous KO defeats. I think there might have been a bit of a confidence issue.

Lets remember that Tarver couldnt beat the worst version of Jones.
Jones did beat Tarver when they fought in 03

 

Tarver would always pose problems for Roy. Maybe not enough to beat him in his prime but enough to make it a very competitive fight.

Tall rangy southpaws have given Jones problems before. Frankie Liles another tall rangy southpaw stopped Roy in the amateurs and with hindsight it doesn't seem surprising that it was another tall rangy southpaw that would KO Jones for the second time in his long career. Roy avoided Nunn who was another tall rangy southpaw and wrote letters to the sanctioning body to petition for his mandatories Nunn and Tarver to face elimination bouts against Rocchigiani and Harding.

Look at the first Tarver/Jones and Griffin/Jones fights you will see 2 similar strategies employed by both of Roy's opponents with similar success. Both Tarver and Griffin took control of the centre of the ring, employed a good defence, counter punching and feints and forced Jones up onto the ropes where they were able to land their best shots.

The difference between Griffin and Tarver was when Jones was forced out of his normal counter punching style and started being aggressive, Jones had the power to hurt Griffin while Tarver was more durable and had the power to hurt Jones unlike Griffin.

So I would say that Jones even in his prime would be in for a tough fight against Tarver who simply had the style and attributes to always pose him problems.

 

Guys with Jones like talent at their best, are their own worst enemies by not being mentally or physically prepared to always give 100% in training and during the fight itself.

That's basically the only way guys like Tarver or Johnson can beat Jones. If health is of no concern, it's mainly Jones beating himself by not giving his all from start of training camp through it all.

Tarver is a B+ caliber fighter.
Johnson never was more than a B caliber fighter.

They're not in the same league talent wise, especially Johnson.

 

Its unusual for me to say this to you but Good post :good.

Is that correct that Jones wrote letters to the sanctioning bodies about wanting Tarver and Nunn to fight Harding and Rocchigiani respectively?
I remember those fights but if you are correct, had no idea Jones was responsible for those fights taking place

 

Nunn tried to get Jones in the ring on four occasions
1: At mw - Jones turned him down
2: At lhw Jones vacated the belt

3: Nunn faced Rocch to get the belt and lost. There was a certain amount of controversy because according to Joe Goosen the Roch camp were shown the scorecards in between rounds. The wbc ordered a rematch and that is when Jones cut a deal to strip Roch of the belt. Nunn aproached Jones again and was turned down

4: After Nunn beat Guthrie he was bumped back to Jones no 1 mando again. Jones refused to fight him and kept Nunn waiting for years. In 2002 the wbc notified Nunn that he had to take part in an eliminator against Woods. Nunn sick of it all pulled out.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Your welcome

During the Reggie Johnson fight​

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBhRVkQsDm0[/ame]

Go to 0:02
"There was a time when Roy Jones did not like the idea of having to face a southpaw and did not want to fight any of them"- Jim Lampley​

Jones vs Nunn​

After beating Griiffn Jones had 90 days to come to an arrangement with his mandatory Michael Nunn

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/09/sports/jones-ponders-holyfield-bout.html?src=pm

They couldnt agree on the purse, so the fight went to purse bids, which Nunn promoters won with a purse bid of 2.4m

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-67750332.html

The purse was agreed to get split 75-25 in Jones favour. Jones would of got 1.8m and Nunn would of got 400k. But Jones then decided to pull out.
According to Jones the fight would of violated his agreement with HBO

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/BRIEFLY+%3a+JONES+MAY+GIVE+UP+WBC+TITLE.-a083890905

According to Nunn that was just an excuse to get out of the fight:

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19971109&slug=2571241

After the fight fell through Nunn would say that that fight was his last chance to have a megafight. None of the fab four wanted to fight him and neither did Jones.

After the Roch siutation​

Nunns promoters would arrange a fight with William Guthrie in the hope that the winner of the fight would get a title shot. Hence:

So Nunn became Jones's mandatory AGAIN
Jones response was that he would drag his feet on making another defense of his wbc title. The wbc let him get away with and Jones didnt have to make another defense until 2002 (his previous defense before that was against Frazier in 99). Which left Nunn's career in limbo for two years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...21/Nunns-absence-may-open-door-for-Woods.html

After waiting for years Nunn was told that he had to fight Clinton woods in an elimination bout. Nunn would pull out. His reasons were he had and injury in camp. Another reason could of been he was tired of getting messed around. He was the no 1 mando for 2 years and now he has to take part in an eliminator bout?
6 years later Jones would find himself in the same position as Nunn. His career was derailed and he needed the top lhw champ Calzaghe to give him a shot.
The word karma comes to mind

 

Damm. He was an even bigger ducker than I thought..

 

Roy Jones is my favorite all-time boxer but I do admit that he started an ongoing trend after his Toney fight, which is at times request approval of whom he'd face next... or then again, actively search for the Low risk / High reward type bouts.

Many fighters have voluntarily done the same since....

It's a trend that could instantly stop if there was only 1 possible champ per division, and major networks would only reward fights that stage the next best contenders in line facing those sole champs.

No more contracts, just money being allocated on a championship fight by championship fight basis.

 

People seem to forget that Jones did beat him once when Tarver was at his absolute peak and Jones was on the decline.

 

Jones looked horrendous after losing weight coming down from heavyweight and still managed to sneak a legitimate victory. prime Jones would have won boring wide UD over tarver in my mind.

 

it was quite obvious roy was drained as hell in that fight...he was already gassed after 4 or 5 rounds...sucking air

 

it's not that i'm not giving tarver credit for beating roy.. BUT roy was definitely NOT in his prime when they fought... the weight did play an issue though, that's why roy looked so sluggish in the first tarver fight... but in a PRIME or PRIME sense, i see jones to beat tarver 9/10 times....

 

I had the first fight a draw though (Last two rounds to Jones) but cant complain that he won it. Was close.