Let me tell you something about Roy Jones after he beat John Ruiz. He could’ve stayed at heavyweight, cherry picked a handful of top 10 opponents (Oquendo, Holyfield, Tua, Rahman), retired at over 50 wins against 1 loss and maybe went down as the greatest of all time. But no, his ego and his management, who clearly were a bunch of yes men, advised him to go back down to light heavyweight after putting on all that muscle to move to heavyweight. He looked terrible after the Ruiz fight. Clearly never the same. He could’ve easily beaten the people I just mentioned. Not to mention his pull in the sport, he probably could’ve gotten optional defenses against people in the top 15 to top 20. Major lapse in judgment by RJJ and his team. His declining speed wasn’t going to be an issue at HW, but it was a problem at LHW.
You need to be really specific here with this hypothetical. Are we saying then that Roy wouldn’t have fought Tarver and Johnson back at LHW, and the specific Ruiz version would have fought Mike? Because we’ve got people referencing the Tarver and Johnson fight. Also, would Mike still have fought Williams? I’d have given Roy a realistic chance, but only IF he’d not dropped back to LHW, and it had been after Mike’s loss to Williams. So: Right at the end of 2004, under those specific circumstances, it could have been possible. For the Williams fight, Mike was coming off of the Etienne win, where he looked to have some fight left. But after the Williams defeat, where he fought McBride, the tank was completely empty.
They didn’t advise him to do that. Mackie Shilstone, who’d helped build him up to fight Ruiz, pulled him to one side and pleaded with him not to go back down to LHW. He told him that if he wasn’t going to remain at HW, that he should go to CW, or take a significant amount of time off. He told him that burning the muscle off was dangerous, where it could affect the body’s immune system. The issue was, there were no viable mega money fights for him at HW, and Tarver had been baiting him. Tarver had crashed the post-Ruiz press conference. With hindsight, he obviously shouldn’t have fought Tarver at that point.
I don’t know that Roy was prepared to fight any other high profile HW but Ruiz. The Quiet Man was very low on pure boxing skill so that box was ticked for Roy. Ruiz’s main threats were his superior size and mauling, rough style. Many banked on Ruiz’s superior size and that style to be Roy’s undoing. Roy made it clear that he wouldn’t stand for that style and throughout the fight Nady made sure Roy was kept out of harms way, Ruiz’s preferred style being effectively negated. So, whatever challenge/resistance Ruiz could provide was basically removed - the effective bullets removed from his gun, so to speak - therefore, it was none too surprising how the fight unfolded. However, Ruiz almost spoiled the show still in the first round when he clearly wobbled Roy with just a few nondescript punches.
Apparently the WBA wanted him to rematch Ruiz next. A fight he had nothing to gain from. And yeah you're right maybe he could have had a nice little reign at HW but at LHW he had bigger fights with Tarver and Glen Johnson.
Oh, come on, Roy Jones Junior was a massive draw. A fight with Holyfield would’ve been a nice payday, or anyone at heavyweight for that matter because people would want to tune in and see Roy Jones fighting at that weight. He could’ve fought James Tony in a rematch at heavyweight. That’s a ridiculous excuse.
What rematch? I never read that anywhere. Also, Roy Jones at heavyweight would’ve been a huge draw because he would’ve been oursized by everyone he would be up against. I think he would’ve made more money there than back at light heavyweight.
Remember reading a few months ago they wanted RJJ to rematch Ruiz. RJJ initially seemed receptive to keeping the belt and that seems to have been the thing that made him go down.
Roy could have won in 2003 however he would have needed a perfect fight since one slip up and it would have been good night even eith that version of Tyson who made quick work of Erienne.
Evander was the initial target. They were also in deep negotiations after the Ruiz fight. Ruiz was reluctant to tie Roy up, as Roy kept hitting him with crisp shots. Nady split them up in the first few rounds, but after that, Ruiz didn’t want to know. That lead to Norman Stone screaming at him in-between the rounds.
What excuse? They didn’t want him to drop back. But he was only open to remaining at HW, obviously for the right fight, for the right amount of money. He was in deep negotiations to fight Evander in the summer. But from what I’ve read from Jim Thomas’ book, (Evander’s attorney) the issues were as follows: Both Don King and Murad Muhammad wanted a significant percentage. Don King refused to pay Evander money which was owed to him from a previous fight. Thomas says that after he’d taken that news back to Evander, he was absolutely outraged. Thomas told him that he’d got Toney as another option for him, but that the guarantee would be for significantly less. At that point, Evander instructed Thomas to make the Toney fight instead, just on principle. Roy then briefly considered fighting Corrie Sanders, which IMHO, would have been disastrous for him. After that, there were no mega money HW fights out there for him, apart from Tyson. When that didn’t work out, he dropped back for Tarver, who again, had been baiting him.
Yes, there were negotiations with Evander but the fight didn’t manifest nor did any other endeavours at HW. I think Nady was very quick to split them throughout the fight, very much to Roy’s advantage. Stone was screaming at the ref at one point re multiple warnings given to Ruiz while none were being given to Jones. Also, as the fight wore on, it seemed that Ruiz increasingly became somewhat conditioned to Ref Nady’s immediate breaking and prevention of Ruiz doing any of his more preferable work inside - therefore causing Ruiz to second guess himself about even trying to get in close in the first place.
Yeah, Nady really ****ed him that night. Everyone wanted to see how Roy was going to handle a mauling type like Ruiz and we were robbed of that. You’re right about the first round, Ruiz landed I think what was a right hand, that definitely caught Roy’s attention. I’m not gonna say he was out on his feet, but he definitely was stunned for sure.
I still think there were opportunities for him to fight guys in the top 10 to top 15 and get more money compared to what he was getting at light heavyweight. He was getting what? 5 million a fight at one point to fight nobodies like Glenn Kelly?