I believe that as well. Only I'm also pretty sure that prime Roy wouldn't get past any modern day drugtest, not even the USADA ones.
Based on what? The division is unrecognisable from RJJs time... Only really decent LHW he had was Dariusz & Tarver & he lost to one & didn't fight the other! I mean Clinton Woods... Need I say more! Glenn Johnson, Maske, Harding, Griffin... Come on now?? Decent to fair. He had a fairly weak division & even then he never cleaned it out.. Kovalev, Ward, Adonis, Beterbiev, Gvozdyk, Smith, Bivol, Jack, Pascal, Barrera, Alvarez, Chilemba, Fonfara... Best division in boxing IMO That chin combined with EE timing & power 9not in all cases)????!!! As great an athlete & unorthodox as he was he is clearly a vulnerable fighter & far from unbeatable. His LHW resume was questionable for such a vaunted fighter.. His 3 best wins at LHW to suggest he runs through todays LHW's please??
easily. The one drug test he failed was a surprise test by the state of Indiana(which had no authority to drug test at that time, which means roy jones was not prepared to beat a drug test) and the only substance he tested positive for was one which was legal and an ingredient in numerous over the counter supplements, not even banned by the wbc wba etc and also present in his opponents system at twice the levels of roy. Virgil Hill reggie Johnson and Tarver are great/elite wins Harding gonzalez griffin Del valle are very good wins Fonfara/pascal level Telesco Hall McCallum Woods are solid wins Sullivan Barrera level ouch truth hurts.....
I think using the word: "schools" is an exaggeration. But personally, I'd take the versions of Roy from 93-03, over anybody today from MW-CW. I think his refusal to hang up the gloves has definitely impacted people's opinions though. Many people now seem to underrate him. But if you remembered him when he was prime, or you go back and watch his old fights, who would you honestly favour over him? That's not to say he couldn't have been beaten, but who would be favoured over him? Before Kovalev fought Andre Ward, many people thought that Kovalev would have crushed him. But since Andre made him look human, those claims have since died down.
It's not just who he beat, it's how he beat them. It's absolutely hilarious how you want to dismiss the likes of Griffin and Woods, whilst at the same time, you've tried to big up: Jack, Barrera, Chilemba, Fonfara and Pascal etc. Roy had a very good LHW resume. It's not his fault he couldn't get Dariusz in the ring, or Bernard in a 2002 rematch. You don't have to just focus on his 3 best wins at LHW. If you watched his career unfold, you'd appreciate the attributes that he possessed at other weights too. We saw him fight Ruiz at just under 200 pounds. We saw that he was comfortable at the weight, keeping his blistering hand speed. Therefore, you can envisage how he may have fared against today's CW's. A guy like Roy didn't need to have fought 10 elite LHW's, before anyone could claim that he could beat the best guys of today. Just use your eyes. However, if you do want to just specifically look at his top 3 LHW wins, I'd say that they were highly impressive, and they offered more than enough evidence to suggest he'd be the best LHW if he was prime today.
Based on what? The LHW division Jones fought in was not very strong and he avoided the #1 fighter in the Division and didn't fight him.
in all of history i would not bank on more then a handful of people taking out prime RJJ so this division pretty much has no hope
Look at what you've wrote. You've said that he only fought in a decent era, whilst the current one is superior. Yet you have then listed guys who weren't even better than most of the guys who Roy fought. Andre and Kovalev are elite. Fair enough. Beterbiev is making waves, and Adonis would have been a top fighter in Roy's era. The others like Jack, Fonfara and Barrera etc, are no better than the likes of: Griffin, Hill, Woods and Johnson etc.
You can focus on any you want. There is sufficient evidence available, to put forward an objective opinion on how Roy would have been favoured over everybody today.
