Roy Jones was the greatest talent boxing has ever seen, especially in the middleweights where I can’t favor any pugilist in history to best him under the Queensberry rules of traditional boxing. Anything Nas could of done Roy could of done better, with more refined technique.
Sure the excuse is BS but so is every other PED excuse. In fact the substance he tested positive for was in fact over the counter and legal back then(which, along with the fact that the Indiana state comission had no authority to test for PEDs back then, was why he didn't get a ban) The androstenone or whatever is afaik a metabolite of exogenous testosterone he took(don't quote me on that) so yes he was likely on PEDs but who wasn't back then? Where are all the other Roy Jones if all it takes is some PEDs. Fury, Canelo, Toney, Saunders, Holyfield,a Vargas and many of my other favourite fighters have been popped. And when it comes to his chin, he took enough shots in his prime against Griffin, Ruiz, Gonzalez to give him the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't complete glass in his prime. Just like kovalev could take a decent shot in his prime and is now glass jawed. Same with SRL, his chin also declined rapidly over just 2-3 fights.
I'm not going to get into all that crap about what substance it was he was on it's been done to death and then some and he was clearly jacked silly with steroids. The thing I take issue with is years of witnessing his doe-eyed fanboys completely ignore the fact he was clearly juiced to high heaven during his prime and them picking him demolish other fighters with ease in hypothetical match ups who've never failed drug tests and who fought in an era were fighters were actually being tested for steroids or in one where stringent testing was in place without even the merest mention of that. His punch resistance might have declined but by the same token there's a notable dearth of legit bangers and KO punchers on his CV when he was in his prime. I'd say the same about Kovalev who is one of my favourite fighters of recent years.
Toney hit Jones with a huge left hook in the 5th I think. Jones just stared at him. It looked like he had some crazy chin or something with that, at the time
Naz was super talented, amazing reflexes, probably the hardest hitting featherweight ever and good hand speed, but RJJ was just the most gifted fighter there probably has ever been. His hand speed was ridiculous and at middle and supermiddle he hit as hard as anyone, his reflexes were practically supernatural, who the hell puts their hands behind their back and then drops you!
Agreed. Oliver McCall would even fall against Hamed's unlimited power. I wish people would just accept that.
Roy defended against schoolteachers, police officers &even an Aussie garbage collector yet never travelled abroad to fight. He made a career out of being blatantly robbed in Seoul