I don't get the Roy Jones Jr. Adoration

Your post is certainly well written and respectful. But, what you are missing is that you clearly did not witness Roy Jones' career as it was happening. I saw him fight live 5 times, and saw every important fight he had on TV. He was a force of nature like no other fighter over the last 30 years. Mayweather didn't even come close. Roy was nothing at all like Naseem Hamed. Roy did have skills. But, his incredible speed, reflexes, and athleticism were usually enough to make even the most polished pros (James Toney, Virgil Hill, Reggie Johnson) look foolish. And your comment that Roy had a weak chin confirms that you know very little about his actual career. Not only was Roy never knocked out in his prime, he was never even down (with the exception of a questionable KD against Lou Del Valle). I recommend you get on Youtube and watch how a prime Roy Jones absolutely destroys fighters that were normally durable like Thomas Tate (who went the distance with ****ing Julian Jackson) and Tony Thornton (who had just gone the distance with James Toney and Chris Eubank.) It was like a man against a child. For a period of almost 15 years Roy was untouchable. A true All Time Great.

 

I can agree with this post. As I said I do rate him as an ATG. He certainly was a great fighter with exceptional gifts. Where I have to disagree with some posters is that I don't see him as being above other ATGs at all.

In fact, I would say the very top echelon of fighters, the absolute elite such as Greb, Robinson, Langford and perhaps a dozen or so more are a level above him due to having a wider variety of skills complementing their athletic talents (which IMO at least come close to his).
Ranking him anywhere just below those guys is reasonable for me. Remember we are talking about the best 20 or so fighters that ever stepped into the ring out of thousands upon thousands so ranking RJJ there or a bit below is not an insult at all! He was an awesome fighter, but based on what I have seen so far (which isn't enough) I can't put him up there with them not to mention above them.

 

I agree with Bert ..BUT , to me, RJJ could have done so much more to prove he was the best. Some are easy to say, he was the GOAT at 168, why? For basically being tested once and dominating Toney? Yes I know he dominated the ones he picked to fight after that..but when you have a protected career, imo, you are going to get that criticism from me. Much respect for RJJ, but I'll take Greb.. maybe a 50/50 fight h2h, but at least Greb was fully tested and whooped Tunney's a** in the first 2 while giving up 12 lbs. in the 1st and I think 7 in the 2nd

 

Well thought-out OP. Good stuff. Not sure how I feel about Jones. On the one hand, he did very occasionally bite off a big chunk and go after Toney or Hopkins (but that was before Hopkins was really known, so they thought they were taking less of a risk than they were).

He inhabited an era where fighters at the top could maneuver and slip and slide and make good money without ever really extending themselves. He took full advantage of that.

 

Interesting point and you are right about me missing Jones' career at the time. I started to take an interest in boxing about 6 years ago (when I was 21) and up until that point had never even heard of him. Somehow the RJJ hype just wasn't very present in my area or perhaps I just missed it.

Anyway I think this is both a positive and a negative thing, because on one hand it enables me to look at his performances and overall career rather unbiased and without any emotional or nostalgic attachment but on the other hand and as you rightly point out, it makes me unable to fully appreciate what a force he must have been at the time, especially as I hadn't witnessed the rise of his opponents such as Toney and Hopkins either and am therefore possibly underrating his dominant performances against them (what a war crime of a sentence!).

So as someone who is obviously a fan of the man, which fights or sequences of his would you recommend for me to watch to get a more complete picture? Anything I should pay attention to in general?

 

The way he made world clas pros look like rank beginners is something I haven't seen anyone else do. He just made them look absolutely clueless.

 

For me his career is a case of what could have been mostly, for an ATG his resume is not great to put it mildly - best wins are a green Bernard Hopkins, a weight drained James Toney and an ancient Mike McCallum, Virgil Hill was past his best too. For me the only truly outstanding win on his CV is the fight with John Ruiz and that without a doubt that was an incredible achievement for a guy who wasn't even a big LHW to leapfrog the CW division and then school a full size HW who was also a world champion.

Dariusz
Benn
Eubank
Nunn
Collins
Calzaghe (pre 2004)
Hopkins (rematch pre 2004)
Toney (rematch pre 2004)
Having only one fight at HW and then going back down

So many missed opportunities and I'd favour Roy in nearly all those bouts when in his prime but we'll never know now how they would have gone.

 

Roy Jones is definitely a boxer, like Duran, who remained in the ring so long he was actually an average to bad fighter for as long or LONGER than he was a great fighter.

Roy Jones was one of the most amazing fighters in the history of the sport ... for 14 years (1989-2003). During that time he went 49-1 (and reversed his lone DQ loss via first-round blowout). He won titles from middleweight to heavyweight.

Old-time boxing experts were writing articles and saying you could make an argument Jones was the best fighter pound-for-pound who ever lived.

Then the wheels came off with the first Tarver fight at the end of 2003. And HE'S STILL BOXING. 15 years AFTER the wheels came off.

He's arguably been an ordinary to BAD fighter LONGER than he was great.

That will hurt a fighter's standing all-time. It certainly did for Jones. While people still respect him, NO ONE is raving about him like they did after his win over Ruiz.

It's difficult to convince anyone how "awesome" Jones was when you can easily point to his KO losses to guys like Danny Green and Tarver and Glen Johnson and Maccarinelli and his garbage fights in Eastern Europe and Russia that are too numerous to mention.

The GREAT Roy Jones' toughest opponent was the "CHINNY MEDIOCRE" Roy Jones.

Chinny, mediocre Roy Jones killed the GREAT Roy Jones.

Just like fat, lazy Roberto Duran who quit against Leonard (and kept on quitting, like after he got hit in the armpit by Pat Lawlor) killed the Great Roberto Duran for many.

 

This must be some rhetorical question or something. You don't get the adoration for a fighter with unrivaled speed and reflex for a fighter his size? Nobody in the history of this sport his size, combined the speed, power and reflexes he did. Nobody. Yes you can pick apart his resume, and he avoided some guys he should've fought, but frankly nobody was beating him at his best anyways. No matter the names people say he should've fought, or would've given him a hard time, nah, I don't see it really. As far as athletically gifted, there's hasn't been anyone better, then when you mixed in world titles and various weight classes, yeah, adoration seems appropriate.

 

Well, until 2003. It's 2018. And he's still fighting.

What's to adore about the guy who went 10 rounds with Scott Sigmon in Pensacola in February? What's to admire about a boxer who quit doing roadwork a decade ago and hasn't done a situp in about the same time frame.

There isn't video of Ezzard Charles losing 20 times to journeymen. It's easy to just remember old timers at or near their best because the film we have of them is usually when they were fighting for something important.

With guys like Jones, there's just as thorough of a video record of him being mediocre as there is of him being great.

Guys who are in their 20s now never saw Jones fight LIVE when he was great, and Jones has been active their entire lives. So its not surprising when people don't "get it" when it comes to guys who fought FAR too long.

 

Don't have time to read previous replies, let's just say that around the time of the Ruiz fight he was in the discussion as being a top 10 ATG P4P.

 

And Roy Jones killed that talk by continuing to fight for the next 15 years, and never looking like a top 10 ATG at any point during the 15 years after Ruiz.

 

Muhammad Ali's career was hurt by his poor performances at the end of his career. Can you imagine if he continued to box throughout the 1980s, and lost another six or seven times, getting knocked out in one round by this guy and in four rounds by that guy and struggling with journeymen from Kentucky to wind up his career?

He likely wouldn't be considered among the best heavyweights ever, that's for sure.

 

He had already been a pro for 15 years and was in his mid 30' s. Whose legacy, especially at the mid weights, do you judge past that window? Do you chastise Sam Langford for all the losses he accrued by sticking around too long? In my book Langford is still top 3 P4P ATG even with 30 or so losses.

Its about a window of greatness not best career management. And with Roy that window was still pretty large.

 

I’m not convinced that the men you named all had more skills or comparable athletic gifts. But if you’re just arguing that Roy belongs behind Langford, Greb, SRR and a very small number of young their fighters in the “Greatness” rankings, I’m not sure that many here disagree. If anything, you’d probably find more who think you’re the one overrating him.