no he wasn't. he avoided the two best fighters of his era in makeable fights. he was a paper champion.
But unless there’s an undisputed champion, everything is hearsay and unproven. They were all single belt holders - Toney and Jones included. It wasn’t until late 2007 that the division got unified, after Calzaghe waited an absurd amount of time to attempt it, disgracefully. He wasn’t even a star in Wales, let alone the UK, until his late 30s (after taking up boxing at 8!)
That’s subjective. Toney and Jones were paper champions - IBF was very new, vacant lineage etc and no unifying attempts.
toney and jones are legendary fighters who fought elite fighters for years, thats an unanimous opinion among boxing fans, the belts are just a detail when you are at that level. what is also an unanimous opinion is that eubank was a decent backyard champion with a paper belt and nothing more .
it's hard to unify when more than a few euro fighters at the time, like i have said previously, don't fight in the states. again, we return to the point of fighters who fight in the states get career-defining fights. forget belts, forget crowds. jones was the P4P king for years, hopkins was at 2 for a time also, and a slew of euro fighters didn't go the US as a result.
that's just not true. who a fighter fought and when is how a fighter is remembered for his career. it's fool proof, because it shows the intent of the fighter to fight (or not fight) the best around.
Jones hadn’t fought a soul until he fought Toney. And after that he never fought anyone near their best or best weight. Yes Toney was dead on the night from the weight but that’s his fault.
In Germany they considered Maske, Rocky, Michalblabla and Vitali the best. Many of their writers wrote Roy was a fraud and that Michalblabla was the king
You don’t know who’s the best until everyone fights and there’s only one champion. You can suspect, sure
before toney , jones had already fought former world champions castro and vaca , and then a little known fighter called bernard hopkins in his first title fight. its ludicrous to compare the nineties PFP king to a mediocre alphabet holder, you are being dense on purpose.
I'm glad you brought up Jorge Castro, who was an absolute legend in the sport. Locomotora compiled a record of 130-11-3 with 90 KOs. If you look at the names Castro has on his resume, it's outstanding, he fought and beat many legends. After losing to Jones, he went on to beat Reggie Johnson twice, he beat John David Jackson KO'ing him in thrilling comeback fashion who was undefeated at the time in what was Ring Magazine 1994 FOTY. He fought Roberto Duran twice, winning the first time. Went on to beat John David Jackson again. Any boxer who ends up with over 100 wins over their career is a certified legend. 130 wins is other worldly.
