Did Roy Jones start losing at LHW when his competition stepped up?

Bailey,
You said in one of your previous posts that you were up for a debate. This thread has become ridiculous now. There's some good points made by people but they're not getting discussed, people are just trading insults. Now in your opinion, Roy's career dramatically changed when he stopped taking his supposed roids?

You agree with all of the other posters that think he was roiding till he got caught in 2000? yes? His first loss was in May 2004 to Tarver. So that was 4 years after he'd supposedly stopped taking them. That is not a dramatic change is it? If he had to rely on his roids that much, he wouldn't have been to have beaten Harding, Gonzalez, Woods, Ruiz and Tarver would he?

The ONLY REASON he lost to Tarver and Johnson is because of his dramatic weight loss of 20 pounds of pure muscle in 8 months. There is no other explination. There's clear cut evidence. Both scientific and the fact that, he had nothing left after round 8 in the first Tarver fight, and when he fought Johnson, he lost EVERY round and then was brutally knocked out in the 9th.

Like I say, if you don't like Roy, fine. You were probably delighted and were jumping around, so you won't have had any sympathy for him. But the fact is, pre Ruiz before he killed his body, burning away his muscle fibres, he would have beaten a guy like Johnson with ease. Antonio Tarver went into the first fight and fought at 100 per cent of his capabilities. Whilst Roy was probably fighting at around 75 per cent, because of the dramatic weight loss. It's not like going on a diet and losing 2 stone of bodyfat, it was over 20 pounds of muscle that just got wasted away.

It's nothing to do with him stepping up in class. Tarver just got him at the right time. But like I said in my other post, if Roy could beat him when he's not physically at his best, when he's got nothing left after 8 rounds, what would have happened if Roy had have been 100 per cent motivated and physically fit? Did you see the Johnson fight? Roy's speed, reflexes, punch resistance and legs were completely gone. And even if you think he had at one point been on roids, you know he beat Ruiz, Harding, Gonzalez etc, etc withoutn them, so that wasn't the reason why he lost to Johnson. The reason was the weight loss at 35. 20 pounds in 8 months is ridiculous.

The doctors after said he shouldn't have been fighting, he was completely dehydrated. Now what other explination could there be for his loss to Glen Johnson? There isn't one is there? I'm going to ask you a direct question Bailey. This is the third time that I've asked this question, and I still haven't got an answer. I'm sorry for the insults on my previous post, and despite you hating on Roy, I can see that you do have knowledge of the sport.

So my question is this, and please answer it. Do you think that if Roy had've fought Glen Johnson late 2002 pre Ruiz, that he would have lost every single round to Glen, and then have been brutally knocked out?

The question doesn't really need answering really does it? Be honest, nobody thinks that Glen Johnson could have beaten Roy pre Ruiz, but not only have beaten him but to win every round? Come on! Before Roy's dramatic weight loss, Roy wouldn't have been able to win a single round against Glen, if they'd have fought before Ruiz?

Anything after Johnson is totally irrelevant. Roy'd career ended in September 2004. He was done and he was never the same. He got a bit of he confidence back, but he was never the same. It was nothing to do with, roids, or coming up against a better fighter, we know that Tarver and Johnson weren't better fighters. It was the weight loss that ended his career. We know that Green, lebedev etc couldn't have beaten Roy at his best.

Some boxers just get beat by better fighters, but sometimes it's due to other factors. Nobody thinks Berbick couldn't have beaten Ali in his prime etc do they?

So to answer the threads question, he started losing, not because his competition had stepped up, but because he lost all of his muscle and his attributes when he 35 after Ruiz. It's the only expilnation of why he was done after 8 rounds against Tarver, and the only logical explanation of why Johnson won every round and then was able to knock him out. Forget Calzaghe, he was probably the best fighter he fought at 175 (only because Mcallum was too old when Roy fought him) but the Calzaghe fight was FOUR years after Johnson when Roy was nearly 40.

I've made my point, get back to me if you want.

Regards, Loudon.

 

Roy didn't beat many light heavies who hadn't already been exposed. He beat everybody that had a belt and who was relevant apart from Daruisz, because that fight could never get made, which has been discussed.

Roy has a title fight against someone and then wins a belt, then you say afterwards well it wasn't a great win, because that guy had already been beaten a few times in his career before he won the belt and lost it to Roy. You can't hold that against Roy. Most peoples records have got losses on.

Truth be told, the light heavy division wasn't great was it? It had some really goodfighters in it but it wasn't great. But again you can't hold that against Roy. I wish he'd been at his peak during the 70's or 80's but what can we do it.

Apart from Dariusz, he'd beaten everyone who was relevant, he had most of the belts. What southpaws did he struggle with, when they come to the ring on a winning run? He struggled with Harding, but please don't say Tarver and Calzaghe. We've discussed the weight loss, or I have, and Roy was40 when he fought Joe.

 

In 1995 Jones fought Thornton, who had no Ring ranking. He was basically coming out of a 2 year reiterment to fight Jones
Nunn was ranked 9th

In 1996 Jones fought Lucas and Brannon who had no ranking
Nunn was ranked 7th

Scully was a fringe contender, but by beating him and picking up a regional trinket Nunn was able to climb the abc belt rankings. He was much better than any opponent Jones defended his ibf belt against at smw.

Because Nunn is being judged by a standard that you are not applying to Jones's other opponents.


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+:+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.

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 3 years and now he has to take part in an eliminator bout?

 

Nunn only asked for a shot in 95.
The other two times he had earned the shot because he was Jones's mandatory.

As a champion of a sanctioning body you are supposed to fight your mandatories. If you start picking and choosing then you defeat the purpose. Jones is willing to fight guys like Kelly, Frazier and Woods but not Nunn?

No, thats not how it works. The p4p rankings is a imaginary system which has no bearing on a fighters drawing ability. Jones should not of even been ranked on the p4p rankings. Who had he beaten post 95 to deserve to be ranked that high?

Most of Jones's title defenses were a waste of time, Richard Frazier comes to mind

No, he cant. The wbc champion is entitled to 75% of the purse. Jones was happy to give Kelly etc 25% but he applied another standard to Nunn, which is why the fight went to purse bids. Goosen won it and gave Jones 75%, Jones refused to accept, which is why he got stripped by the wbc.

Jones had the wbc, ibf and wba belt. There was nowhere else for Nunn to go except to another division.

And there lies the problem. The sanctioning bodies cant make him fight Nunn, but they can make him fight Woods and Frazier?

Because it was insulting.
Champions of belts have certain options. One of them is the elimination bout option. In order to avoid selling dud fights to your tv network you can request the sanctioning body force you no 1 mandatory to fight an elimination bout to prove he is worthy of the spot. Jones did this to Tarver in 2000. After waiting for 3 years Nunn is then told he has to prove he is worthy of his place. If Nunn had won he would of been where he started as a mandatory for a champion who is refusing to fight him. Jones never did this to his other opponents, except Nunn and Tarver. Both of whom had styles similiar to Liles who Jones also did not want to fight.

Who else was there to fight? No one recognised the wbo so there was no point fighting Daruis and Jones had all the other belts. Basically Nunn was having keep busy fights while hoping that the wbc will eventually force the issue, which they didnt.

No, they cancelled his contract because they had enough of him and his diva behaviour.

Seth Abraham- former head of HBO boxing

http://www.secondsout.com/columns/thomas-hauser/hbo-boxing-the-challenge

That was why HBO had cancelled his contract because they were tired of Jones selling them non competitive fights

http://a.espncdn.com/boxing/a/2002/0904/1427223.html

The thing is when the shoe was on the other foot, Jones wanted calzaghe to give him a chance

HBO were interested in that fight and collins was a lot better than most of the guys Jones fought at smw.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/IT'S+WAR;+Words+fly+over+Steve+super+fight.-a061108823

 

True.

Byrd was fine by the time he fought Saddow
If a fighter fights for a long time he will eventually lose two things:
1: His reflexes age/accumulation of punishment
2: The will to train hard

Jones post Ruiz was in the same position as Tyson post Spinks. Both wanted to carry on fighting because of money but they had lost their love for the sport and were cutting corners in camp.

prime 4 prime I would favor Jones over the various opponents he lost to post Ruiz

 

No. He probably never fought a lhw as good as the version of hill he faced.

His prime certainly ended with the ruiz victory.

After that win he was somewhat inconsistent which is a combination of age, diminished reflexes, lack of technique to fall back on and poor training technique to lose his weight.

I can't recall his record from the top of my head post ruiz, but he picked up past prime victories over tarver, trinidad, lacy and sheika. He lost to tarver, johnson, calzaghe, hopkins, green and lebedev.

In my honest opinion, the versions of those fighters that beat him, would lose to a peak roy jones.

There's a chance that tarver counters him with a peach of a shot again but i'd put it less than even.

So to answer the question, i'd say no. None of his lhw opponents were a step up from the version of hill he dominated. The guy just got old, didn't have the necessary technique to compensate for his diminishing athletic prowess. His weight issues meant he couldn't recover well enough when caught.

 

Jones got old. He was caught in a division where he couldn't out speed the bigger guys once he came down from hvw back to lhw. He was dead meat at age 35.

 

you literally have to be blind not to see what an absurdly brilliant fighter Roy Jones was in his prime.

The proof is in the pudding. People will always watch Roy Jones. Why? Because his brilliance speaks for itself. It's self-evident to anyone with the slightest capacity to detect outsized talent.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkcV76trxRE[/ame]

 

Laughing my ****ing ass off!