RJJ's top 5 performances?

Hall, Toney, Reggie, Griffin II and Hill IMO. In any order.

 

1.) Griffin II
2.) Toney
3.) Hill
4.) Ruiz
5.) Clinton Woods (unpopular opinion)

 

1. Griffin II
2. Toney
3. Hopkins I
4. Hill
5. Ruiz

Honorable mentions. His win over Harding was impressive considering Harding had just beaten both Griffin and Tarver and was undefeated.
Also, his win over Julio Gonzalez who was an undefeated fighter at the time and a guy that ended giving Michalczewski his first loss.

 

I forgot about that one. Good call. Tate was a pretty damn good fighter.

 

did you really find the Hopkins fight an impressive performance? Or just an impressive name? To me the fight was dreadful from both guys. I think both were pre prime with RJJ closer to it. They were very respectful and cautious with one another and fought very low risk. Hopkins didn’t really engage at all till 8 or 9 and really never got into it, but I thought RJJ didn’t really do a whole lot more, just enough to win some rounds largely.

 

That period between late 1994 and late 1996 he was as close to untouchable as I've seen a fighter be. Apart from Toney, the opposition wasn't that great but he just took guys like Tate, Tony Thornton and Merqui Sosa apart. They were all good, durable guys and he really made short work of them.

 

1. Toney
2. Hill
3. Griffin II
4. Ruiz
5. Johnson

 

I did find it to be an impressive performance. Not an exciting fight but a high level chess match where Jones edge in athleticism won him the fight.

A lot of folks don't like Hopkins because his fights are not the most exciting but I appreciate the little things he does. To this day I love watching his fight with Tarver. He knew going into that his jab would be ineffective against Tarver so he completely abandoned it. He only landed nine jabs in that fight and won the fight bu attacking from angles with right hand leads over Tarvers left hand.

Any win over Hopkins is an impressive win to me. Think of all of the great fighters that Hopkins completely dominated. Tito, Pavlik, Tarver, Cloud, Holmes, Joppy etc were all completely dominated.

 

I enjoyed the first Jones-Bhop fight.

 

You could throw Paz in there as well. Not big names, but who else ever dismantled them like that?

 

1. Toney (that's the easy one)

2. Johnson (also went the distance, but he just had his way with him)

3. Griffin 2

4. Tate

5. Sosa

HMs: Hill, Malinga, Hopkins

 

And how few that beat him clearly. He wouldn't lose clearly again until he was in his late 40's.

 

Well, I decided not to throw Paz in there as it was such a horrible mismatch. But yeah, Jones was flawless in that one too.