Do you think that sometimes at times, being past someone's prime isnt really a good excuse?

Yes. Its got to have supporting evidence before and after of the fighter struggling.

One that irked me recently is RJJ. Tarver and Johnson were the same age and RJJ didn't lose for another 3 years after fighting them. Hopkins was older, Calzaghe was having his final fight. RJJ had a style that doesn't age well but people have gotten so melo dramatic about RJJ being washed in like 2003, 2004. And it kind of feels like they are going out of their way to withold Tarvers flowers.

 

I think discussions occur whereby the participants conflate:

1. Impact on greatness with impact on the outcome of fantasy fights; and

2. Prime with peak.

E.g. take Tyson vs Douglas and Duran vs SRL 2, as fights commonly debated in this area.

Both fights occurred during the respective losers prime years. Neither was at their peak on those particular nights.

Not being at their peak isn't an excuse from a greatness/all time ranking perspective, but it is relevant if discussing the outcome of a fantasy fight (which is always on each fighters peak nights, unless otherwise specified).

 

It depends on the fighter and how much wear and tear they've taken during their career. Mayweather was two years older than Manny, but Manny had 17 more fights than Floyd and those additional fights aged him more than two birthdays. Floyd was much more preserved and his fighting style allowed him to remain closer to his prime despite being slightly older.

 

I think this depends so much on an individual basis. If we speak about specific fights and fighters then it’s different

 

He also barely fought for the three years between his loss to Johnson and his loss to Calzaghe, think he had 3 fights during the period and his best opponent was a former superwelter in Trinidad who hadn’t fought in 3 years himself.

Tarver kind of deserves to have him flowers withdrawn here, dropping weight and muscld you put on while in your mid 30s is never really a good mix for any athlete.

 

Evidence?

There’s plenty of evidence.

Pre-HW, Roy went almost 50 fights, where he barely lost rounds in the majority of them.

He also beat better fighters than Johnson and Tarver.


Every fighter ages differently in the ring. Simply depending on their styles and their circumstances.

Tarver didn’t turn pro until he was about 28, where he’d only fought 23 times, to Roy’s 50.


Roy breezed by world level guys, but then barely beat Tarver, and lost to Glen Johnson, who was 1-1-1 with Clinton Woods.

It’s crystal clear that Roy was depleted in the first Tarver fight, and was just there for the taking against Johnson, after he’d returned to the ring, just a few months after the knockout loss to Tarver.


So: A guy who’d barely lost rounds in 15 years, and who’d only lost just 1 fight out of 50, (due to a DQ) suddenly lost 3 fights consecutively.


Is that not clear enough evidence for you??

A man who’d embarrassed Toney, and who’d destroyed Griffin and Hill, couldn’t win a round off of Glen Johnson??


He didn’t lose for 3 years?

That’s because he fought 2 non world level fighters, before fighting a former WW who’d not fought in 3 years.


Are you aware that before Calzaghe fought him, he’d said that the fight with Roy would be pointless, as Roy was a shot fighter and had been for years?

He wrote in his autobiography that both Johnson and Tarver fought shot versions of Roy.

 

""Pre-HW, Roy went almost 50 fights, where he barely lost rounds in the majority of them."
"He also beat better fighters than Johnson and Tarver."

This is proof RJJ was not far removed from his prime. You're trying to say he was never the same after the weight cut but Tarver and Glen Johnson were RJJ's best LHW opponents.

Hopkins was a better opponent and Hopkins won more rounds then anyone in between. The guys who won the most rounds in between were Montell Griffin and Harding. Tarver and Glen Johnson both beat them both.

"who was 1-1-1 with Clinton Woods."
Clinton Woods is the British LHW GOAT. Was ranked in the top 10 7 times. 4 solid world title defenses.

"So: A guy who’d barely lost rounds in 15 years, and who’d only lost just 1 fight out of 50, (due to a DQ) suddenly lost 3 fights consecutively."
"A man who’d embarrassed Toney, and who’d destroyed Griffin and Hill, couldn’t win a round off of Glen Johnson??"

After losing 3 in a row to Tarver and Johnson he won 3 in a row before losing to Calzaghe. Almost as if the level of opponent was the problem.

RJJ won 3 rounds against Johnson. Out of 9. If he actually was getting shut out by a opponent who wasn't relative to the best LHWs at the time you would have a point. Neither point stands.

"That’s because he fought 2 non world level fighters"
True but they were clear wins. They didn't deserve title shots or to be ranked but were high regional level opponents.

"before fighting a former WW who’d not fought in 3 years."

Trinidad is the same height as RJJ. RJJ was a former MW himself. I get the three years thing but Trinidad had beaten Mayorga 6 months earlier to start his comeback. Mayorga pales compared to a lot of his peers but that was just about the best version of Mayorga. That was a real win.

"Are you aware that before Calzaghe fought him, he’d said that the fight with Roy would be pointless, as Roy was a shot fighter and had been for years?"

At this point in the story RJJ is clearly fairly removed from his prime. Hes a nearly 40 year old fighter who relied on his speed. RJJ still knocked down Calzaghe and fought pretty well against Hopkins 18 months later. He wasn't "shot". He was still at the world level.

"He wrote in his autobiography that both Johnson and Tarver fought shot versions of Roy.'

You see this is my problem. If you want to say RJJ was "shot" when he fought Calzaghe fine. Its an arbitrary term. It was years since his last major LHW win or even fight and he almost got shut out. That was late 2008. Fast forwarding that 5 years to when RJJ was the HW/LHW champion because he lost 4 rounds to Tarver is unfair. Theres no way to win then and why have the fights? RJJ was fighting for the LHW title over 6 years later and winning rounds. Calling RJJ a shot fighter is just plain inaccurate. Was he past his 100% peak by 2003,2004? Thats a different story. If fighting the guy who loses 5 rounds in 110 "doesn't really count" the moment he fails to fails to maintain that what are we doing here?

I guess credit to Calzaghe for being humble and discrediting his win. We don't see a lot of that these days. But saying the guy that knocked him down was done 5 years just is not true.

 

It depends on whether the boxer avoids the greats of his time, like Jesse Rodriguez, who vacated his 115 lbs belt to return to 112 lbs to avoid Junto Nakatani for the unification, but then faced old veterans who wasn't on prime anymore like Estrada, Carlos Cuadras, Pedro Guevara and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai... and then accepted the unification bout at 115 lbs when he saw Fernando Daniel Martinez was declining during the rematch with Kazuto Ioka... it naturally raises questions...

 

I think it’s a combination of things that were going on with Roy v Tarver.
Roy shouldn’t get excused for losing to him, since they were a similar age, but there are a few things which probably add up.
Roy had been fighting much longer than Tarver.
He had over double the amount of fights of Tarver.
He’d just come down from Heavyweight.
He had a style that relied on youth and speed.
The Johnson, Calzaghe and later Hopkins losses showed that he probably did fall off the cliff, even if the height of that cliff gets a bit overstated.

 

There is always a grey area.

There is no question that athletes in all sports are "physically" better when they are younger and have suffered fewer injuries to recover from.

Certainly, some athletes never fully recover from injuries but still compete. And I include beatings suffered by boxers with that.

It's also true that some athletes can use their experience to remain effective in their later years with the tools they still have, even as some of their other skills have diminished.

In boxing, you may see that with fighters who have one style in their younger days who then change their styles to accommodate for the age- or injury-related physical problems they've had.

And fighters who don't change their style or find one that works when the physicality that they depended on starts to go ... they kinda crash really fast. (Which Roy Jones did.)

So, when someone says "past their prime," I agree, that's a little broad. But fighters often do hit a wall really fast. And, if they are stubborn, and don't change what doesn't work anymore, they start losing, usually.

I think that certainly happened to Roy Jones. It also didn't help that he fought on for nearly 20 years after hitting his wall.

Speaking of Roy Jones in particular, since he seems to be the point of your post, and this is going to get a little weird ...



I met Roy Jones in person before. I actually even met Tarver before.

But I met Jones when he was announcing for HBO in the mid 2000s. What struck me about him, because I'd met other heavyweights before, and at that time, he wasn't that far removed from beating John Ruiz

... Was how incredibly small his HEAD was.

You'd see lighter boxers who move up in weight, especially back before guys totally dried out to fight in the lower classes. The guys who moved up tended to have bigger skeletons. Not in terms of height, necessarily, but big heads, big hands, big feet.

Duran had a huge head. So does Manny. Even Mayweather.

I remember people saying that everyone knew Michael Moorer would be a heavyweight one day, even when he was an amateur middleweight, because he had big feet. His nickname as a kid was "sasquatch" ... because his feet were big like the footprints Bigfoot left in the snow.

But Roy Jones' head wasn't much bigger than a heavyweight's clenched fist. It is a really small head.

Even on those old HBO shows, look at the size of Merchant and Lampley's heads compared to Roy's, who is standing right next to them.

It's an odd thing to notice when a grown man has a pretty small head.

So, once he started losing his speed and his strength (after coming down from heavyweight), it wasn't surprising at all to met that Roy Jones started getting knocked around.

Because Jones certainly didn't have the skeleton to be winning all the heavier fights he had. And he didn't have the skeleton to take big shots from most large people. Once he lost his speed, and some of his skills, but he kept trying to box the same, it all came crashing down quickly.

(Side note: Tarver has a big skull.)

Not sure if that added anything to the discussion. But the guy's head was really small.

 

Where would you say Deontay Wilder is relative to his prime?

 

Good post

 

Perfectly articulated.

 

HistoryZero26,

Roy had already slowed down before going up to HW in 2003.

His prime was in the 90’s.


I’m not trying to say it, I am saying it.

Roy was never the same after he’d dropped back from HW.


Now you’re really struggling here.

We don’t need to hire Columbo to figure this out.


Apart from a DQ, Roy was unbeaten in 50 fights, across a period of 15 years.

Yet he then ended up losing 3 consecutive fights, within a period of just 18 months.


No, Tarver and Johnson weren’t his best LHW opponents.

Tarver was.

But Johnson was no better than Clinton Woods, Montell Griffin, Reggie Johnson and Virgil Hill.


Johnson was a B level guy who simply got Roy at the right time.

Again, Roy had decimated Virgil Hill and Montell Griffin. He’d embarrassed James Toney. He’d toyed with Clinton Woods and Reggie Johnson. He’d beaten Bernard Hopkins with a badly injured hand. He’d easily beaten Richard Hall, Jorge Castro, Thulani Malinga and John Ruiz.

Think about the above.


Either Glen Johnson was great.

Or Roy was simply a lesser fighter when he fought him.


It doesn’t take much working out.


Now if he’d have fought 50 fights against C level/non world level guys, before stepping up his competition considerably, then it would be something worthwhile to analyse.

But that is not what happened.

Again, he’d already beaten better fighters than Johnson and Tarver.


It is absolutely crystal clear, that he was a lesser fighter post-HW.

It doesn’t get any clearer.

Clinton was a B level guy who Roy toyed with.

Clinton and Johnson split 3 fights, as they were at a similar level.

The only difference is, Johnson got Roy at the right time.

Johnson would have been lucky to have taken a round off of any pre-HW version of Roy.

100%

The level of opponent WAS the problem.


He couldn’t beat world level fighters, but he could beat lower level fighters.

All the evidence is there.


He couldn’t beat Antonio Tarver or Glen Johnson, but he could beat Prince Badi Ajamu, Anthony Hanshaw and a washed Tito.

He couldn’t beat Joe Calzaghe, but then he could beat Omar Sheika and the remains of Jeff Lacy.

He then couldn’t beat Danny Green, Bernard Hopkins or Denis Lebedev, but he could beat fighters afterwards, after he’d dropped back down a level.


Every top level fighter he fought = he lost.

Every lower level/non world level guy he fought = he won.

Come back to reality.


Again, the guy embarrassed a prime James Toney.

He crushed Virgil Hill.

He went 15 years without defeat, having faced BETTER fighters than Johnson.


Neither point stands??

Johnson got a 35 year old, 50 fight version of Roy Jones, who’d just been iced by Tarver, just 2-3 months earlier.

A Johnson who couldn’t win a 3 fight series against Clinton Woods.

They were clear wins, because they were NON World level guys.

So what if he’s the same height??

So what if he’d beaten Mayorga?


How are the above things relevant??


The man hadn’t fought in 3 years, and he couldn’t even make their agreed upon catch-weight at the first time of asking.

He was finished as a top level fighter.

He was shot, as in - he was no longer an elite level fighter.

The only confusion here, is to what your definition of shot is.


I have given you the facts.

I have listed his opponents, the manner of his victories and the length of his reign etc.


He wasn’t shot, as in - he literally wasn’t capable of fighting.

He was shot, as in - he was no longer an elite level fighter.


He could only win against lower level/non world level fighters.

It was true.

Why don’t you take his words onboard.

Glen Johnson would never have been able to have replicated that performance against any pre-HW version of Roy.