Loudon You sound like you are parrotting Jones word for word here and I just have to comment. Jones comments about equaling the record of the legends of the past that fought at 175, then heavy then 175 again for the titles are an insult to history. I take these comments about as serious as I took the comments last week he made about being cruiserweight world champion. A joke. There is a clear and direct lineage for the heavyweight champions of the past right up to the current day. Jones was never in that line. It's a shame he never fought some heavys where he had a chance to win like Byrd, holyfield rahman, and just go for it. Alas that would be too big a risk and I believe all Jones talk about tyson Lennox and Holy were lies plain and simple. Nobody knew or cared about a tarver fight until he pushed Jones to the limit, the corrupt WBA even gave him a free title. Happy Chrismas Loudon !
At that time he had held wins over Toney and Jones, and would be the only one for years until Lebedev. He was also unbeaten, and never seemed the same to me after Jones knocked him out.. After the first fight, plenty of people wanted to see Jones Griffin 2.. Hbo was fine with it as well.. It is no secret, Roy did fight some fighters that should not have been in the ring with him. Do you remember the interview before the Brannon fight? It has been removed from youtube, but HBO was in the ring backing Roy up, about the competition running away from him.. That doesn't seem to me they would be backing Roy up, if they were fed up with him.
Hope you had a great Christmas mate. I'm not parroting Roy at all. Those are the facts. If you're not impressed, that's fine. Ruiz wasn't a 65 Ali, and Tarver wasn't SRR. But Roy was nearly 35, he'd had 50 fights, and they were tough fights. I didn't see a queue of other LHW's at John Ruiz's door, wanting a shot. If you don't believe the talk of fighting Tyson and Lewis, I respect that.
Did I ever ong for the day when RJJ and Toney would be considered the two biggest jokes in boxing. {Weeps tears of joy}
Hi Loudon Yes I am not impressed. Nothing to do with facts though. Yes Ruiz wasnt a 1965 Ali - for sure. What Ruiz also wasnt- was THE heayweight champion and neither was Jones. In this world of many belts some guys are merley some top ten contenders with a shiny belt and that describes many of the titlists at that time- Jones , Ruiz, Byrd etc There is a line for the HW champions and if Jones did in fact want to win the real title we all know that he would have to fight lewis. Which would of course be suicide. PS: I saw James toney another former middleweight, kick down Ruiz door- stripped of the win or not the fact is that Ruiz had been done over by middleweights cruiserweights. Ironically the quiet man had his better fights against the larger men. :good:good
That's fair enough. But how many former SMW's have gone up to fight any top 5 HW? I'm sure someone like Ward would be good enough to beat a top 5 HW. But would he ever take the chance? That's the difference. Ruiz wasn't great. But he was effective at what he did. I'd bet my life that if he'd have dropped Roy, and it had been an exciting back and forth fight, like Toney and Jirov, Roy would have gotten huge credit. But because it was so one sided with no action, he hardly got any. But that was ten years ago. Again, what's happened since? Not a lot. No current 168-175 fighters look as though they're going to go up and have a go.
Yeah but Ruiz was a world champion,even though a paper world champion like so many are these days.Jones deserves credit for winnng though. However, I believe Toney accomplishments at heavyweight to be higher than Jones. Even though he became champion, Jones once again did not take the risk. Toney did and fought established big men and did well for the most part. Toney beat Holyfield, Guinn, Oquendo and drew with Rahman. He also had good outings against Peter I (robbery), Rahman II (Rahman quitting) and Ruiz(tested positive).That was bad luck and Toney deserved wins in the first 2 fights. Jones beat Ruiz in a boring fight.
This is an excellent post. Also note that Jay Nady did not allow Ruiz to fight his "style". Now dont get me wrong if I had my way Nady would ref every ruiz and Wlad fight ever. However the fact is that this man ruiz was not allowed to do- what he normally does (cheat )