P4P matchup 2: Roberto Duran vs Roy Jones Jr

great post..

 

Thank you sir.

 

After massive claims such as Toney pulling his punches, not throwing counters on purpose and throwing the fight the burden of proof (or even a tidbit) sits squarely on your good self.....even more so after claiming a fix for the Ruiz fight as a cherry on top.

If they had a rematch with both still at their peaks you would have seen a quite similar result. In essence to show you another fight where Toney resembles the helpless soul he was that night would have to involve RJJ again because at the time he was just that good.

To understand would be to give proper credit to Jones and it's pretty evident you are a long way from that stage. Maybe you will get there or some of the way there sometime in the future.

The fact of the matter is that Jones is POISON for the likes of Toney, a technicians absolute worst nightmare. Jones was never there for Toney's counters, his athleticism and otherworldly speed and reflex saw to that.

 

I'll admit my claims are a bit of a stretch (to put it mildly) but I think the proof is in the film. The film of Toney in any other fight shows a fighter with a very different approach, style, and skills than the Toney in the Roy fight. The same applies for Ruiz I think but I'm not as confident in that one as Toney, which I think is the clearer example of the two (also I've watched more of Toney than I have of Ruiz to be upfront). Of course Roy did have exceptional athleticism and was a very talented, gifted fighter who did a lot of things very well. He had great foot speed, hand speed, good punching power, he was very energetic and lively. But, he lacked good fundamentals and top level boxing skill (he still had a lot of skill but he wasn't a technician and was limited in a good few departments). He lacked a jab for one (at that point in his career anyway) and was vulnerable to clean punches down the middle and fought predominantly at long range, being less effective at mid and close range. He would get his head off the line sometimes when he fought Toney which is certainly a good thing against counterpunchers but he did do it pretty infrequently, sometimes taking a picture after he threw and leaving himself in range to get countered. He also would jump in with his shots and leave himself open when in close (which Toney never capitalised on despite demonstrating the ability to do so in a number of his other fights). Roy would also walk back in straight lines when pressed and shelled up on the ropes (his shell was more of an inactive high guard, he wouldn't tuck his shoulders in or keep his arms and gloves close to his head and body so was still vulnerable in this position). There were maybe six or so occasions in the fight where Toney half-assed a jab and every single time without fail he would back up Roy, land, and have him in punching range but never followed up, instead opting to plod forward and let Roy get his lick back for some reason. Roy didn't know how to deal with a good jab and Toney demonstrated time and again that he had a good jab, knew how to work behind it, and knew how to employ it to set his punches up. His trainers begged him to use it in the corner yet he chose not to despite being successful every time he did. That wasn't down to Roy's speed or his great ability since Roy never negated Toney's jab in the fight, Toney decided to fight that way from the opening bell even though he had success each time he even so much as attempted an imitation of his jab. Roy didn't move laterally to stop Toney from throwing the jab (he did a little bit early in the fight but predominantly worked in straight lines), didn't get under it, and he didn't counter the jab since Roy (to the best of my knowledge anyway) never really showed the ability to negate his opponents' jab. This isn't to say that Roy wasn't a great fighter or extraordinarily talented but I think it gets blown out of proportion and I have suspicions about fight-fixing for a lot of guys (Foreman once said something along the lines of "If everyone knew how much of boxing is fixed, nobody would watch", most big sports (football, tennis, basketball) are afflicted with match fixing and rigging the results of matches for a number of reasons and I don't think boxing is distinct, we know that the sport as a whole was controlled by the mob for most of its history and big promoters today are concerned with making money, not fair fights, I don't even doubt that a lot of my own favourite fighters benefitted from fixes).