Roy Jones was better than Sugar Ray Robinson

Or the part time Policemen, Firemen, Park Ranger. If you were of service Roy wanted a piece of you.

 

He was hard to catch. James Toney did land a couple solid punches that would have sniffed out a glass jaw. Lou DeValle put him down but he seemed to recover fine. Montell Griffen hit him plenty but not much power. Roy should get the benefit of the doubt for not letting us find out for many years. No virtue in getting hit if you can avoid it.

 

I agree that's a big part of what makes a great fighter. And there's a difference when comparing Jones and Robinson on that basis.

Everyone may have wanted a piece of Robinson as he was a star and a relative big pay day. But Robinson didn't even hold a world title until December 1946. Can you pinpoint exactly when Robinson was supposed to have fought the guys you mention and at what weight? Can he really be accused of ducking these fighters? For example, Marshall was a light heavyweight by the time Robinson was welterweight champion. Whereas Jones had guys who were fellow world title claimants in his own division who he ignored. It's not the same.

Jones didn't do what you're accusing Robinson of not doing.

 

Out of the guys Roy Jones fought the following seem to have been rated in the top ten in their respective divisions. Bernard Hopkins, Thomas Tate, James Toney, Vinny Panzienza, Merqui Sosa, Montell Griffin, Virgil Hill, Lou Del Valle, Reggie Johnson, David Telesco, Eric Harding, Julio Cesar Gonzalez, John Ruiz, and Antonio Tarver. That's a total of 14 opponents. If we include Clinton Woods it would go up to 15. It's not the deepest resume in terms of depth but clearly he beat many highly ranked opponents.

 

Bernard Hopkins was green, a lot greener than Jones. He was nothing to what he was to blossom into 7 odd years later.

 

I shudder to think how many top 10 opponents Robinson defeated.

 

Exactly how durable Jones was in his pomp is up to the imagination but he certainly wasn't the glass chinned struggler that he became which some try to project around here as the be all and end all. Not yourself of course.

Tarver did have just 23 fights under his belt going into the Jones rematch vs Jones 49. Jones had 15 years in the pro game and Tarver just 7.

I totally agree Jones was not better than SRR. It's possible to speculate that at his greatest he may have been approaching that level but he can't compete with the incredibly proven Robinson for runs on the board. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt Robinson was that great. I do think Jones would beat a great many ATG's tho.

 

By my count Robinson defeated about 21 guys ranked in the top 10 at the time that he beat him. The first was in 1941 and the last in 1961.

 

Well, he registered his first win against such (and in no ordinary fashion), in his 20th bout, against Lightweight Champion, Sammy Angott. The title was not on the line.

A few months and less than half a dozen contests later, Robinson became the number 1 contender at Welterweight by beating Zivic. He was 20 years old.

I've seen a couple of lists, floating around the internet, of the ranked guys he fought, up to the age of 37 (Basilio [II]). As I recall, it numbered not far off 50 Top-10'ers in that period (with a few losses in there, of course). More than half of the wins, however, were against Top-5 ranked opponents.

 

I'm comfortable in speculating that, if Jones Jr had had the career path of Robinson; fighting at the frequency of Robinson, against the consistently good to great opposition of Robinson (and without his 'dietary regimen') his legacy would look at lot different.

Re Tarver - Sure, he'd had less fights than Jones Jr, but RJJ had hardly found himself in wars, had he?
35 Years Old is 35 Years Old in any language

 

He's got an immense number of wins over top 10's for sure. @McGrain might have a rough idea. I'm betting it's more than Coji claims.

 

Hard to argue with that. It was a completely different scene back then. If you didn't fight for 6 months you were considered to be rusty and in need of some fights to get back into condition.

 

No he wasnt. Roy had amazing God given reflexes. Probebly better than a young Ali's but that's it.Thats what he got by on as evidence later on in his career when they started to erode. He lacked basic fundamental boxing skills .

 

Even in fights you win there is a price to be paid. Just the basic idea of your hands. Can your hands hold up? When you just fought two weeks ago but there's bills to be paid. We know Floyd couldn't have done too well with his hand issues.

 

It would be useful to have a corroborated list.