I think the belief that Roy had "No fundamentals" is greatly exaggerated, in my opinion. The guy had great fundamentals but for the most part it worked in his favour to be as unorthodox as he was due to his incredible physical gifts.
I agree Meffus. To me Naz had poor fundamentals. Roy had good fundamentals that were overshadowed by his incredible physical gifts.
I have never made one.. But I have never witnessed anyone with the ability of Jones the power and speed, the reflexes, combinations,punches from all angles..., and I have seen tapes of Ray Robinson, and Roy impressed me more. Again, I am talking ability not resume.
yes, roy suffers from being too good for his own good. roy basically gets no credit for beating ruiz. he made it look too easy so people just demanded he fight lennox and dismissed the wba belt he won. david haye gets more respect on these boards for being given the belt in a fight he clearly lost vs valuev. jones at his peak was better than any fighter over the last 25 years.
He had unreal natural athletic talent but his technical boxing skills were worse than a novice amateur. He didn't know how to stand, didn't know how to punch, was wide open, out of position, had a horribly hesitant jab, looked lost against the ropes, and when punches came at him he would turn his head, stretch his neck and even close his eyes! I have never seen anything like it. Awful. But he trebled three-inch hooks easily, had lightning hand speed, was rarely rooted but always landed on the balls of his feet on-balance, and had quick reflexes. He was a one-off in terms of alien-like ability but so terribly flawed at the same time.
His biggest issue was his Fragile Glass Jaw. His Chin would be a huge liability against ATG's in head to head match ups. We aren't talking about Glen Kelly, Richard Frazier, Richard Hall, or Otis Grant. Anyone can look good against those handpicked bums. We are talking about Michael Spinks, Bob Foster, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, etc would all Shatter Roy's brittle Glass Jaw into a million pieces.
Rico, Are you really going to pretend like you didn't see a decline in Roy's punch resistance? You make his chin out in his prime to be way worse than it actually was. I agree, there was a point in 2004 and onward to where Roy didn't seem to be able to take a punch, but it wasn't from a step up in competition, and it wasn't a step up in power punchers... You can't achieve what Roy did across 4 weight divisions, with a chin as bad as you claim he had.
You probably were not watching boxing in 94... But everyone was under the impression that he could take a good shot when he moved up in weight and took some clean power shots from Toney. Many were predicting that Jones couldn't handle Toney's power. Also he was hit hard vs. Montel Griffin, went up to HW and was hit hard by Ruiz in the first round, even in the first Tarver fight he took many shots, and Tarver has good power when he loads up on a punch. I am not claiming Roy had an iron chin, but it was not glass as its current state, It would have been exposed much earlier, probably the 5th round of the Toney fight where he was hammered pretty hard by James. It clearly declined with most of his other abilities, and I don't see how this can be argued, when looking at it with your head out of your ass.