Cooper had a Type of Style and physical tools to destroy Jones brutally.. Died.... Bert Cooper had a peak Holyfield ko on his feet. You make no sense
Yeah I think I got the gist of what you were saying. Jones looked okay for one round. Then he got knocked out in the second which might suggests he wasn’t on top of his game. Complicated stuff clearly.
@Loudon, fair enough Griff, I didn’t consider his movie role. But it still isn’t apples to apples. Tarver didn’t bulk up to heavyweight for a so-called “historic” fight, come back down to 175 and beat Hopkins and then get knocked out with one punch by Hopkins in the rematch
Nobody is disputing what happened with Byrd. I agree with you that Andre would also have beaten Dawson at 175. That’s not the point. The point is, all of those guys struggled when they burnt muscle. All of them were never the same fighters afterwards. All of them said they felt great in training but were devoid of energy in the fights. All of them had diminished punch resistance. I spoke to John Scully and he told me that Chad couldn’t drop that weight. He had an absolute nightmare in camp. At one stage, he even gained weight in camp. And that was after running in the heat. When it came to the fight, he didn’t look right. And that wasn’t just because Andre was great. I’m one of Andre’s biggest fans. But even I don’t give him much credit for that win. Mackie Shilstone is a highly respected sports strategist and scientist who worked with both Roy and Bernard. Again, he says that burning muscle can affect the body’s immune system. You saw in the first Tarver fight that Roy was running on fumes in the final 3rd of the fight. There was a noticeable difference. And it’s not like it was a fight which was fought at a really fast pace. He was visibly a different fighter to the one we’d seen previously. And add to the fact that he was 35 and had fought 50 times, it’s not hard to see why the wheels came off. Roy was a reflex based fighter who dealt in split second timing with a highly unorthodox style.
There's a very good chance that Moorer would smoke Jones, especially at heavyweight. He was a vicious, quick, textbook combo puncher from the wrong side.
I think Moorer would have been very dangerous. Roy didn’t struggle against Reggie Johnson. He absolutely dominated him with ease.
Holyfield barring being stunned won most rounds against Cooper. Cooper could punch but was very limited and lost against most gatekeepers he faced. You seriously think Cooper stands a chance against Prime RJJ??? A gatekeeper?
He never looked the same fighter though. When you have 4 fighters who’d struggled and a respected sports strategist saying that it can damage a fighter, there must be something in it.
It’s pretty clear how he lost the fight. He got hit on the chin and sparked early. The question is whether he got caught and hurt like that because of being a declined fighter and I think that’s true. Roy also struggled to an extent we hadn’t seen for a long time in the first fight with Tarver. And unlike the Harding and Griffin fights previously it looked as much a physical as stylistic thing. Jones was clearly tired by the midway point of the fight and it’s not as if Antonio was setting an intense pace either. I think its safe to assume the weight drop did partly effect him as a fighter at least for fight one. Maybe Roy was fully recovered by the rematch as you’re suggesting and just got caught and goodnight. But the fact remains he never looked remotely world class again after this apart from occasional flashes against crap opposition and that’s factoring in him not looking very good in the first Tarver fight. In my opinion it was age, a long career both amateur and professional, a sudden weight drop causing a drop in punch resistance, diminished reflexes from being over 35 and his legs going that caused Jones’s sudden and stunning decline. I don’t think it was as simplistic as Tarver being better and one punch from him ruining RJJ. Tarver wasn’t that great a fighter.