He wasn't in any way overrated. You'd have to find a CW today in order to find someone who you'd strongly favour over him.
He seems to have made an honest attempt at Liles. Collins, as you say, was WBO champ for Jones's last year at 168, and he wanted Roy. But a year isn't much in the alhpabet era and Collins soon got tangled up with Benn after the fights with Eubank. I don't know if there were any discussions between RJJ and Collins. There's a thread about, though, maybe there's some information there.
The "end of career" thing is why some people think Babe Ruth was always a fat, unathletic slob. He was a stud between the ages of 18 and around 25 at which point the booze, hot dogs and fast women were ruining his body. Jones looked so bad in his last fights that it's easy to overlook his earlier accomplishments.
Why does/should end of career losses tarnish his career?? Not with me it doesn't. That's what real warrior ATG's do, they keep fighting. They have over 70 fights on their resume .. They are ACTIVE .. Almost Every active ATG picks up losses when they keep fighting. Roy was going up and down and the Ruiz fight has been become so underrated. I think he takes his "knock" for not fighting the better guys at 168 and maybe for the roids ..
More of an underachiever I would say. He could have afforded to be more ambitious, in his choice of opponents in his prime. Even if he had picked up a loss somewhere, he would have come out of it in a better place historically.
McClellan is the one I'd like the most to see him against. Apart from him, there were Eubank, Benn, Collins, Liles and DM. And a rematch with Hopkins in, say, 2002. Not very realistic to get them all, though. And I don't think you can lay the absence of these fight squarely on Jones not being ambitious enough. Collins seems to be the only one who was really keen on Jones.
It matters where he is ranked to say he is overrated. He is a great fighter, but he did not look for the great challenges like some of the greats of the past. He was content to sit back and win and overwhelm and build his resume that way. Sort of like Floyd, yet he took more pure chances than Floyd did and had more power than Floyd, which gave him an excuse or reason not to developed more defense without that power. Floyd had less overall power than Floyd so developed his defense more.
Granted it might not be Jones's fault in some cases, but his career was something of a lost opportunity. We had a once in a generation talent, and the important matches, were not made in any of the weight classes that he fought in!
I think this is somewhat simplified. He was only a top level MW and SMW for about three years, and during that time he faced Hopkins, Toney, Sosa, Malinga, Tate and Pazienza. No, he didn't clean out either division, but what he did is not shabby for three years of work. And Toney certainly was the important fight at SMW. Benn and Eubank have attained a bit of a superstar luster, but the truth is that they struggled with the likes of Malinga, that Jones easily destroyed, and probably wasn't better than Reggie Johnson level, who also was badly outclassed by Jones. The weight class where he stayed at for most of his prime was LHW and, yes, he never faced the best opponent out there for most of that time and that's a shame, really. But he did clean out the division pretty thoroughly otherwise. I think he has about 20 wins over ranked opposition. That's quite a few more than Hagler and Leonard. Might actually be more than Duran and Hearns even, and up there with the likes of Floyd and Pac. But still you get the feeling that he's some Pryor or Bowe kind of fighter, a "what could have been" that shone very brightly for a while but soon burned out. But that's just not the case.
Why focus on one fight when answering a question that should rely on weighing Jones's total body of work to formulate an educated answer. Sure, Lucas wasn't great. Still, Jones played a B Ball game and shut out a ranked contender in the same night. Not a bad days work. Jones virtually shut out James Toney who was considered the #1 168 pounder in the world when Jones dethroned him If all of Jones's victims were Eric Lucas types than your argument might have some merit.
Because it wasn't one fight - Lucas was an example, there was also Vinny Pazienza, Tony Thornton, Merqui Sosa. Not that Sosa was a bad defense at all. Of course, he beat Toney and that was a great win but after the Toney win each defense between 1995 and 1996 was pretty much an exhibition. It was because Jones was so awesome that it would have been good to see him pushed a bit more by better competition. No complaints with the odd easy defense but I don't think we saw him after Toney meet anyone who even approached that level. It means it's hard to judge just how great he was at his very, very best.
You either fight the best or you don't, it's that simple. Reasons why you miss are pretty irrelevant, only that you missed.. He was the draw, the shot caller, he could have fought better guys, he never fought on the road.. He was there for 2 years, he had the time … He was a GREAT fighter, no doubt, but at least call it like it was .. AND he probably/most likely beats the better guys at 168… You snooze, you lose. It's like defending May for the same sh*t, he could have fought better guys and took on a little more risk, but he didn't … And for the same reason you won't see him on Top 15 ATG p4p lists either, and he never lost … it's not to complicated here
Totally agree with your point on losses when over the hill and shot not meaning much at all. It's always belly laughs seeing people bring up meaningless over the hill losses in an effort to justify another pick. Near as funny is very early losses. Can't overly agree about the "real warrior ATG's" comment much however. I'm surprised no-one has commented. This would discount the likes of Hagler, Monzon, Marciano and countless others. Hagler was certainly an ATG warrior.
Perhaps that it was his first fight that was really big. Hop had been on USA network with medium level fights. Roy was an A side talent and was used to that expsure all the way from the Olympics. Not disagreeing with you though. The biggest problems Hopkins had was Roy Jones was really good.