Is Roy Jones the P4P GOAT?

no. clearly elite and atg...but not close to goat in any weight class. he was more of a jack-of-all-weights.

 

Loudon

It is relevant because rather than insisting that weight cutting is somehow different for different fighters you should try looking at the differing circumstances under which they cut weight.

Which should tell you right there that the fighters who struggled might have been doing something wrong. In other words it was the conditions rather than the actual weight cutting itself that was the problem.

Look at all the asumptions you have made in your argument:

1: You assume that Jones is telling the truth, even though Jones is on record lying about a number of things

2: You assume that because Jones was fatigued in the fight it could only be because of weight cutting

3: You assume the whole issue of his dehydration can just be ignored.

This to you is being objective?

 

Loudon
Jones's training camp for the Tarver I fight was 8 weeks and this is what Jones said midway through his camp:

Roy Jones vs Antonio Tarver Training Camp Notes

Tarver's Camp Shifts To Vero

1: Jones makes no mention of cutting muscle
2: His camp was going so well that he abandoned his plans to move to a more isolated location

It should also be pointed out that during this time Jones was attending rap events like the Source awards

Hip-Hop's Biggest Acts Set For Source Awards _ Billboard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvAMPRQ-6nA
He was also attending boxing fights. If you watch the HBO preview you see Jones and Lampley are at a boxing venue and later on in the preview Jones is filmed at a HBO studio

The HBO preview was filmed about a week before the Jones-Tarver. The fact that Jones found the time to break camp to watch a fight card should tell you that weight cutting was still going well - or where they?

It was a few days later that things started going pear shaped:

The Spokesman-Review.com - Tarver put scare into Jones Jr

So the question is what on earth had happened? Why was Jones 187 lbs three days before the official weigh in? Too busy partying?


-He said cutting weight was no problem
-He stayed in Pensacola - which means he would of been surrounded by "distractions" like friends and family
-He spent around 6 hrs a day attending his 2000 chickens
-He was attending boxing fights and hanging out at HBO studios
-He attended rap events

Scenario 1:
This is clearly not the actions of a focused fighter. A case could be made the he allowed too many outside distractions to disrupt his camp. Leaving him with only three days to get down from 187 lbs to 175 lbs

Scenario 2:
Jones said himself that he intentionally went to Nevada overweight because he believed it would give him extra motivation to keep training. How would he have off set his training regime? More than likely by skipping training sessions. This would explain why he was at boxing fights with Lampley on the Saturday, instead of at his gym.

Either way he was overweight because of his own questionable actions, not because he was struggling to cut muscle

BOXING; Jones's Reputation Takes Hit In Lackluster Victory for Title - New York Times

Hauser tells us that Jones feared being waterlogged like Toney was and that fear made him drink too little fluids after the weigh in causing him to walk into the ring in a dehydrated state.

This is a very different version of events to the one You, Jones and Alton started singing AFTER the fight. Rap events? lol

 

Loudon

1:So you are just going to ignore my question?

2:If you are trying to be objective then you always try to make a point of avoiding quoting members of a fighters camp. As a general rule they tend to be biased. It is always better to use reporters and TV execs who have no vested interest in a fighter reputation.

For example:

On the topic of Jones's positive test result Hauser tells us that Jones failed a drug test and was let of Scott free. Merkonson and Murad claim that the whole thing just was a misunderstanding due to Jones using nasal spray

Which is the most objective source here?

I asked what has eating got to do with being dehydrated?

Byrd
Byrd did not struggle to cut muscle. His original plan was to fight at cw but because the weight cutting was so easy he made the mistake of moving all the way down to lhw. He should of kept to his original plan of fighting at cw.

Dawson

DAWSON LOSS FALLOUT Trainer Scully vs. Strength Coach Murillo

If Dawson really walked into camp at 182 lbs then it should not have been a problem for him to get down to 168 lbs. 1 lb drop after 4 weeks of training? Compare that to Glen Johnson who was 190 lbs for the Cloud fight and had to get down to 168 lbs in 4 weeks for the Allen Green fight. And he said it was no problem. He just did what his nutritionist told him to do. So I think I can safely say it was more than likely that Dawson struggled to make weight because of his regime rather than because he was cutting muscle.

What Roy is that? The one who said he had no problem making weight and was partying during his camp?

8 weeks is a long time

Byrd dropped 30 lbs in 5 weeks
Tarver dropped 30 lbs in 6 weeks

Jones according to the official weigh in was 190 lbs. If he had rehydrated properly come fight night then he would of been 187 lbs. That should tell you right there that Jones was cutting fat in camp, not muscle

Even if you insist on using the unofficial weigh in it just means that Jones had 8 weeks to cut 9 lbs. He should of dropped that weight by the time he was interviewed midway through his camp.

 

Loudon

1: You have no reliable source that Jones kept the weight on or that he maintained the same composition. Jones himself made no mention of cutting muscle in camp either

2: No argument can be made that the official weigh in is wrong

3:It would be physically impossible for Jones to get up to 199 lbs in 6 weeks.
He was 182 lbs for Woods
He was 199 lbs on the unofficial weigh in
That's a weight gain of 17 lbs in a 6 week camp?

Bodybuilding.com - How Much Muscle Can You Gain

Jones most likely put weights in his pockets for the unofficial weigh in to appear heavier than he actually was. He couldn't of done that in the official weigh in because there was a doctor who made him strip to check his clothes for concealed weights

Boxing: Jones strikes out for folk-hero title

 

Loudon

Jones did not have a lot of wear and tear on his body especially when it should be pointed out that most of his fights up until that point were basically "sparring sessions."

What trips you Jones fans up is that you compare Jones from the Woods fight to Jones from the Hall fight and then conclude that he was past prime, but it is wrong to do that. Jones was caught using steroids for the Hall fight. He was also using them in the Harding fight and lord knows how many fights before that. It is the Harmon fight were we see an very different Jones coming into the ring

-Less muscular
-Less power
-His legs were not as good as before. He starting spending more time resting against the ropes

That there is still prime Jones. It's just that he was now a clean fighter. Now I will not say he was clean for the rest of his career but I have no problem believing that he was clean from Harmon to Woods. He was still in his prime when he fought Ruiz in a fight were he pitched a shut out to win the biggest win of his career. So to say that he was somehow faded at that point in time is plain silly.

So you are now going to pass your opinion off as a fact, while ignoring all of the fighters who had no problem cutting muscle like: Hearns, Tiozzi, Dm, JMM, Bradley, Toney and Jones?

If you want to claim that boxing affects a fighters metabolism then you are going to need a medical source.

I think it's safe to say that he didn't have much wear and tear on his body before turning pro seeing as how he was still in his prime when he fought Ruiz. A fighters physical prime ends when they are 34+, that does not include fighters who had tough careers like Morales etc. Jones basically slipped at the point in time when fighters without too much wear and tear of them slip.

And if you want to start playing the wear and tear game you have to consider ALL sources of wear and tear and not just the sources you like.

 

Loudon

Like who?

Tarver?

Tarver fighting to secure his legacy

Jones?

Tarver's Camp Shifts To Vero

Byrd?
Who decided to move down to lhw after making the cw limit so easily?

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3389804

For the record Byrd was really a smw, not a lhw. A lhw is a 185+ fighter who drains down to fight at 175, while a smw is a 178+ fighter who drains down to fight at 168

Dawson
The only case you have is Dawson and even his own trainer said that Dawson made weight the wrong way

Chad Dawson and John Scully Split Up

So you are going to ignore another one of my questions? lol

For the record the fact that Jones had so little body fat would of made it easier for him to cut the muscle. If you train with a calorific deficency then you body will look inside to make up the difference. if you have a low body fat % then your body will start burning muscle. The low body fat makes muscle cutting easier, not harder.

 

Loudon

So now you are a mind reader?

Goosen?
He was ward's promoter, not Dawson's

Scully?

Ward vs Dawson: John Scully Not Excited About Prospect of Going Down in Weight

Dawson?
Dawson himself must of had doubts

Dawson turned down when he attempted to get 170 lb catchweight with Ward

You don't know what you are talking about

Your muscles change size according to your work load. As soon as Jones stopped his training regime he would of shrunk back down to the size he was before he started training. You don't become a natural hw after one fight.

A fighter outgrows his divsion because his metabolism has slowed down making it harder for him to cut the weight, so he moves up. Jones was never in that position seeing as how he would continue to fight at lhw for 5 years, after Ruiz. He also fought Tito at 169.5 lbs and offered to fight DLH at 166 lbs. In other words he hadn't even outgrown the smw division, let alone the lhw division.

 

Loudon

Maybe that's because Jones is lying.

He said that his aim was maintain Jones body weight at 192 lbs, but change the composition. I notice you like to ignore that part.

-He was 193 lbs on the official weigh in

-He rigged the bathroom scales wrong though. Those scales were in stones, not pounds. 20 stone is 280 lbs not 201 lbs

-He more than likely had weights in his pockets for the unofficial weigh in. Seeing as how there would not have been a doctor there to check his clothes for concealed weights

1: I have never claimed that Jones was 199 lbs
2: How on earth does quoting a Hauser article prove he was really 199 lbs?

A year ago you claimed that Jones, during the build up to the Hopkins II fight, said he was really 180 lbs come fight night for their first fight. More than 5 years had passed between fights and you had no problem believing that even though it was nonsense. Yet here you are dismissing Jones's claims that he was 193 lbs because he said it 5 years later.

Interesting

 

Loudon

He was 190 lbs for the Ruiz fight and he would of needed to get down to 175 lbs for the Tarver I fight
I have no idea what Jones weighed when he entered camp but after 7 weeks of training he weighed in at 187 lbs. Telling me that Jones had walked into camp with a lot of fat, not muscle

Jones did not have it hard and I doubt if Hatton would of had time to party and look after chickens while cutting 40lbs

Byrd was refering to the fact that Jones claimed his losses, post Ruiz, were due to the fact that cutting muscle took a lot out of his body. He was still singing that silly song as late as the Calzaghe fight

And how do you know what his weight and body fat percentage were? What is your source? Merkonson? The guy that claimed that Jones struggled with Tarver because he had a bad tooth? The one who said that Jones's positive drug result was due to Jones using nasal spray?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/3705595.stm

And when did Byrd claim that?

How do you know it's correct?

Byrd never claimed that he had somehow "damaged" his body 4 years after cutting weight

1: You did not follow Tarver's career
2: You obviously have made no effort to read about this training camp for the Hopkins fight
3: Tell me why you think Tarver was weight drained based on his performance in that fight?

Do you?

How can you look at it from Jones perspective, you don't know him?

Jones would not have been allowed to fight a tune up on HBO. He had wanted to fight one, but said himself that HBO would not let him.

He didn't want to fight Tarver for the third time. He didn't even want to fight that rematch, which is why Tarver had taken his case to the wbc.

He refused to promote the Tarver III fight and basically quit in the fight itself. I think it's safe to say that HBO pushed him into that fight, rather than him taking it to prove something.

Benn-Collins I
Benn was coming off a loss and Collins was the defending wbo champion
purse split 50-50

Collins-Eubank II
Collins was the defending champion and when he had fought Eubank the first time the purse was split 90-10 in Eubanks favor
purse 70-30

Toney-McCallum
Toney was a star and McCallum only had a small fan base
purse 50-50

DLH-Mayweather
DLH was a megastar.
purse around 75-25

Tyson-Lewis
Tyson was the overwhelming draw in that fight. Americans never warmed to Lewis
purse 50-50

Jones is awarded a HBO contract which pays him 3m for each fight. That money was for him to share with his opponents and he was taking as much as 92% of it, but when his career crashes and burns then he wants to be treated fairly.

 

Jim Thomas in the very same book you are quoting from was not sure how the money was getting split up. Was the unaccounted money going to King or was it going to ALL go to Jones?

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yfjzsb7BASMC&pg=PA220&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
Go to Page 229, three lines down

James Toney Reaches For Glory

It should also be pointed out that Jones had said himself, at the post fight Ruiz interview, that he considered Holyfield to be washed up and he was. He had lost his last fight to Byrd by shut out only won 2 of his last 7 fights

Why on earth would the WBA sanction a fight that is in direct violation of its own rules? Jones fighting Holyfield would mean that he would not be able to make the Sept 1 deadline, so it makes no sense for them to sanction it. Rather they would of refused to sanction the fight and after Sept 1 declared the belt vacant.

http://www.secondsout.com/usa-boxing-news/usa-boxing-news/round-up-wba-order-rahman-v-tua-iii

So? Just because a champion thinks he is in a position to defend his abc belt does not mean that he is.
The proposed Lewis-Kirk Johnson fight comes to mind

See my above post

How does that stop him from being greedier than King? The fact that Jones is a fighter really makes it worse, because he knows the sacrifices fighters have to go through and he was still ripping them off.

Tell that to DLH

 

For me Jones is probably the most gifted/talented boxer of all time, but won't rank as the GOAT. Much like Mario Lemieux in hockey. Gretzky is the basically the clear #1 for people, with Lemieux being anywhere from #2 to #5, and a lot of what if.

 

general zod,

That's fine.

Every fighter is different, with different circumstances surrounding them.

You may well be right.

But I'm looking at the outcome, not the process.

Are you objective?

Everything from above can be reversed.

You are assuming that Roy lied about his difficulties.

You are assuming that Roy's fatigue had nothing to do with the muscle loss.

Also, I haven't ignored what Hauser reported about his intake just before the fight.

I've acknowledged that.

But I still think he'd have struggled, even if he'd have rehydrated properly.

That's my opinion.

When you post up your links, you only fish out certain parts.

You'll happily post Hauser's articles, but will conveniently leave out comments that don't suit your argument.

That's not being objective in any way.

 

general zod,

To be honest, I couldn't care less what he said while he was in camp.

He was hardly going to say he was struggling was he?

I know he was on HBO with Lampley before the fight. I've seen it numerous times.

So what if he didn't mention cutting muscle?

Why would he have needed to?

It was common knowledge.

How many times have we seen fighters say how great they felt in camp, only to tell a very different story afterwards?

Fighters aren't going to show any weaknesses publicly when there's so much at stake.

Go and read Hauser's article again, where he speaks of the troubles he had getting the weight off.

Watch the post fight interview.

Yet you'll ignore all of that, just because you've got quotes from him mid way through camp, saying how good everything was?

 

general zod,

Not all team members are biased, as you've proven with Scully's comments.

What point are you making with Hauser?

He just reported the same story that many other writers did.

Also, if you respect Hauser (I know you do because you've had correspondence with him) then you should read his entire articles objectively, instead of just cherry picking certain comments.

His dehydration was down to food and water intake, or lack of, as you've pointed out.

I'm not arguing against the that he felt queasy etc.

I can accept what you've said.

You're splitting hairs.

The actual muscle may have come off easy.

But he said afterwards that he'd lost the weight too soon.

Again, I'm looking more at the outcome, than the exact process he/they went through.

Roy, Dawson and Byrd all suffered after their weight losses.

Like you say, maybe they all had bad advice etc.

But the outcome was the same.

I agree.

But what difference does it make?

The outcome is, they all suffered afterwards, which was my initial point.

Again, what did you want him to say?

Was he going to say to a reporter 'Man! This weight is so hard to take off. I don't know how I'm gonna make the weigh in.'

Also, it's you who's said he was partying.

You've got a link saying that he was scheduled to appear, and have implied that he was drinking until the early hours.

You can paint a picture in your mind of whatever you want, it doesn't mean it's true.

How do you know it's a long time?

Tarver dropped weight in a seven month period.

So he didn't cut any muscle?

Says who?

You?

We don't know exactly what he went through.