Nobody you replied to said it was a “great” win, they just disputed that he was “green”. The 8th best middleweight in the world is not “green”.
Jones did more than enough to not have Michaelzewski on his record who didn't want to fight him and still be considered great. Dude Hopkins became dedicated to boxing because he was in jail doing it.
He turned his life around in jail, but that doesn't change the fact that Graterford Prison is not the right environment for high level boxing. There are no world class coaches and sparring partners in jail.
Roid Jones Jr. might be the only professional athlete to have been busted for doping and is still universally loved.
My point was that Hopkins took 5 year break from the sport, because he was in prison and couldn't train at a high level there. Just because he found his love for the sport there doesn't change that.
Jones had: A Glass Jaw No Plan B in a fight A lot of hometown and handpicked fights in his career Was arguably never THE champion in any weight class he ever fought in. He was a trinket belt collector Was savagely KOed on 3 separate Continents Spent more time ducking legit fights and making excuses than participating in big fights. Examples are writing sanctioning bodies telling them who should or should not be his mandatory challengers etc. Let’s also not forget Jones was a convicted PED cheat. We don’t really know how great Jones was or could have been because he spent too much time fighting handpicked optional or mandatory fights instead of actually fighting the top contenders that were available to him.
Ask John David Jackson about the improvements B-Hop made after becoming a champ. B-Hop had been Jackson's chief sparring partners (IIRC for a number of years) when Jackson was the champ, and he would also obviously go onto to fight him and would later go onto to train him. He knows B-Hop about as intimately as anyone and he witnessed his evolution as a fighter up close and personal. I can't find the interview where he speaks in depth about it but here's another one and an excerpt from a written one where he touches on it. “Bernard was just overall a good fighter,” said Jackson “When he first started he was a rugged, crude fighter, no boxing finesse whatsoever. “When we sparred he wasn’t young but he was young in terms of learning the game. He learned as he went along so I couldn’t really evaluate him until later on when he really became a great fighter. Bernard when we fought had made four defenses, he was learning his craft. He got better as he went on.” This content is protected
Big fan of Hopkins' boxing, happy to report that he's a very gracious (almost bashful) guy in person. He definitely improved significantly after Jones I. He was no slob when he started pro, though. One of my favorite moments in his career dates to before he became The eXecutioner, from his days as The Terror, his fifth pro bout, for which he had to hit the highway at a few hours notice and make the 340 miles from Philly to Rochester in time to face Jouvin Mercado as a last-minute opponent on a bill Ray Mercer was topping; This content is protected Plenty of solid fundamental building blocks already in evidence there.
Yeah he was still a quality fighter when he fought the juiced to high heaven Roid. Roid wouldn't have got up from that final right hand had it collided with that feeble old lady jaw of his, especially against a B-Hop who was fighting at his natural weight as he was in that fight. My favourite B-Hop moment This content is protected Followed closely by him fouling the Jesus out of Roid all night in their rematch lol
These opinions would be okay if you used the same objectivity towards other fighters. But you don’t do that. No, Toney didn’t have a top SMW resume. But he was one of the world’s best fighters, coming into the ring in good form, after knocking out guys like Tim Littles. So what if he’d had debatable decisions? Henry Maske had retired before Roy entered the LHW division. Fabrice Tiozzo had already moved up to CW. Why would a fight against Roch have been massive? Eubank wouldn’t fight Roy. Why was Collins far more impressive than Toney? By having done what? Beating a faded Eubank in a razor close decision? For beating a shot Benn?
At the time, I believe he said that the altitude in Ecuador was a major issue for him. He beat him easily in the rematch. Although Roy didn’t fight the best version of Roy, he was still a world class fighter. I’ve heard people say that it took him 2 years to win a belt after he faced Roy. But while that’s true, I th I think it was a great win. It went under the radar at the time because it was on a Bowe undercard and they were both unproven. But despite not been highly ranked, you can see by watching the fight how good both guys were. And Roy beat him pretty easily at 24 years old with a badly injured hand.