Why do people rate Roy Jones Jr. so high at middleweight.

He didn't yet know how to cut off the ring by getting low & jabbing/hooking to the body, like he would do in later fights. His defense was also much leakier @that time, which was apparent in his next title fight when he couldn't get out of the way of Mercado's uppercuts. You can see clear improvements in his form in between the 1st & 2nd Mercado fights, which accounted for the differences in outcomes.

 

Well he did have some very notable performances at Middleweight in only his 18th professional fight he beat Jorge Castro handily who a few years later would win the Middleweight title.

He easily out pointed Bernard Hopkins with a broken hand who would go on to become a top 5 Middleweight of all time.

He destroyed Thulani Malinga who gave everyone a tough fight RJJ is the only one who beat him easily.

Dismantled Thomas Tate in 2 rounds who was the only fighter to go 12 rounds with Julian Jackson, also Tate was never legitimately stopped in his career before or after the RJJ loss.

Overall I believe RJJ had a record of 25-0 with 22 stoppages at Middleweight with the only rounds he lost were to Bernard Hopkins which was a maximum of 3 or 4 rounds.

It's the way RJJ beat opponents and how good he looked in regards to the eye test which is why he's rated so highly at the weight.

 

Hopkins was in high altitude in Ecuador at nearly 10,000 feet and he didn't acclimatize properly which is why he was under par vs Mercado not because he drastically changed his style in 5 months.

 

This.

Thomas Tate was considered an iron man till he stepped into the ring with Jones and Roy completely dismantled him. He went on to fight 8 more years, facing more guys who could punch (Sheika, Kiwanuka, Sosa), and was never stopped again.

 

Regarding the thread topic, I don't think Roy fully emerged as a true great until his final fight @160 vs. Thomas Tate. Roy from that 1 fight may have been a H2H beast @160, but he I don't think he accomplished enough during his overall tenure @160 to be rated in the top 10.

 

because he passed through it.

I always said fighters should only be Rated at their 1 main & natural weight, because that is what they really are... maybe 2 if they spent a good few years in another!

 

p4p: idk, not enough imo
h2h: hell yeah

 

He was bigger than everyone he fought at middle, he had an unfair advantage over middleweights because of his size except when he met Hopkins who was the hardest puncher Jones fought at 160, that fight was very boring.

 

Where do you come up with the idea that he was bigger? He fought at 156 as an amateur (and at 139 at the world level before that).

 

How old was he then? He filled out and had more muscle than his opponents come fight time.
5 ft 11 in (180 cm)
Reach 74 in (188 cm)

 

He was 19 in the Olympics and appears to have been fighting at 139 as late as age 17 (more than midway through that year).

Roy made 154 at age 22 1/2 and was 159 when he fought Thomas Tate at 25 1/2. Doesn’t sound like a giant to me.

He was a legit middleweight as a pro but he was no more of a super middle or light heavy than say Hopkins was at that weight. Day-before weigh-ins were a thing and applied to both fighters, not just Roy Jr, lol.

 

He looked big at 168 to me, very muscle bound.

 

The altitude wasn't his only or necessarily even biggest problem in that fight - in fact, he showed more energy down the stretch than Mercado did. He kept overextending himself w/ his punches & leaving himself open to counter uppercuts, which accounted for his 2 KDs. He learned how to better guard against that punch for the rematch.

 

No less than Roy Jones Jr, James Toney and Franklin Liles named Merqui Sosa as the hardest puncher they fought in their Best I Faced interviews. Having a threesome like that testifying for your power is good enough for me.

Adjusting a game plan to face a guy in a rematch doesn’t mean someone made a quantum leap as a fighter … it means they said ‘hmmm, last time that guy knocked me down with uppercuts, need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.’

 

Roy’s legs weren’t really that large. He had more upper body than lower body.