If Roy Jones Jr. had retired after Tarver 1 where would you have ranked him?

It has to be a decent win under the circumstances.

 

Ha!

Joe himself literally doesn’t believe this.

 

Calzaghe was the smaller man??

Hilarious.

Joe had his number. Literally his phone number. But only after he was shot.

 

Yeah, the P4P king and undisputed LHW champ, was going to move Continents, TV networks and divisions, to fight a relatively unknown WBO belt holder, who fought mostly non world level fighters.

Perfectly plausible.

Ha!


Joe REALLY wanted that fight didn’t he. I mean he pulled out all of the stops.

He moved up to LHW and went to America.

Except he didn’t.

He just carried on defending his belt, against mostly non world level opposition. And he did it 21 times.


But he did really want the fight. I mean after all, he said so.

 

He had the attributes to have given Roy a great fight. More attributes than Tarver.

But he didn’t have Tarver’s will. Tarver chased down the fight. He had the drive. The confidence.

That’s what Joe lacked.

And that’s huge.

But with that, he absolutely could have given Roy a great fight. 100%

 

When Roy was prime:

“I’m not chasing Roy Jones, as I don’t want tough fights”

“I’m scared of flying”

 

Can you ever have a conversation about Jones without mentioning 'prime'

These fights were 'prime' Jones when he was P4P number 1

I had Tarver winning that one

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Got any excuses tonight Roy?
Good Night Roy

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And Joe Calzaghe is definitely better than Tarver.

 

Well at least you admit that. We are finally getting somewhere.

 

What do you expect, when you’re uploading clips of Joe’s antics?

Whether you want to admit it or not, Joe wouldn’t have done that against Roy at his best.

We all know that those call outs were phoney, because he never backed them up with anything.

The man had an opportunity in real time, to go all out and pursue that fight. But we know that he didn’t.


Regarding the first Tarver fight, Tarver didn’t do enough. And like I’ve always said, he wouldn’t carry out Buddy McGirt’s instructions. And when McGirt was demanding to know why in between the rounds, Tarver couldn’t answer him. He just sat there looking completely despondent.

The second fight, Roy was in much better condition physically. He’d rehired Mackie Shilstone, and they’d had a great camp. But Roy had nothing left to prove, where he was in a position where he had everything to lose and nothing to gain. It was Tarver who had his second chance at the Super Bowl.


Roy wasn’t in his prime. Roy’s prime was in the 90’s.

If I said to you that Joe was in his prime at 35-36, you would never agree.


In their rematch, Tarver caught him with a beautiful shot. And IMHO, that same shot would have knocked out most fighters. Tarver could hit.


Now nobody will ever forget Tarver’s famous line beforehand.

That’s because he thought that Roy had made excuses, when he’d said that he felt devoid of energy in their first fight, due to the muscle loss.

Yet the exact same thing happened to Tarver, after he’d lost muscle from filming ‘Rocky’ in 2006, just prior to fighting Hopkins. He swears that he had a great camp, but then on the night of the fight, he was completely devoid of energy.

However, because his ego was never going to allow him to apologise/take back what he’d said to Roy, he told everybody that he’d been poisoned.

Also, the exact same thing happened to both Chris Byrd and Chad Dawson, when they’d both burnt healthy muscle.

 

We can agree or disagree.

And we can do it with or without humour, without anybody getting banned.


The issue I have with you, is where you say that I’ve always hated on Joe.

Yet I haven’t.


I’ve always criticised him. But I’ve never hated on him. And I’ve always backed up my criticisms of him.


Based on all of my knowledge, of both fighters, IMHO, Joe never had the confidence to have been favoured.

But IF he had’ve been confident like Tarver was, who literally crashed pressers to force the fight, then that could have been different. But that confidence is just so important.


Look at his attributes:

Southpaw

Big

Super fast

Volume puncher

Great chin

Endless stamina


Those attributes were HUGE.


But we’ve see his actions.

We’ve seen his various comments.


We’ve seen Frank and his great father, Enzo, speak of him.

He was arrogant and he has a huge ego.

But he didn’t have the will or ambition of a Tarver or a Ricky Hatton.


So IMHO, he didn’t have the confidence or the defence needed to have been favoured over Roy at his best.


I don’t think that he had the confidence to have unleashed a huge amount of volume on him.

Because he’d have been facing someone who was faster and more powerful, and who he actually greatly respected.

So I just don’t think he had the confidence to take the fight.


However, I think that if we lived in a world where they’d have had to have fought each other, I think it would have been a respectful and cautious affair, where they’d have both gone feint for feint.

 

Much higher for sure

 

It’s one of those things where do you consider everything he did before the fall from being basically a superhero as separate from what happened once he lost that edge? His flaws were exposed and far more accessible and he didn’t have the ability to adjust or compensate for them. Maybe if he didn’t get flattened by Tarver we would’ve seen a gradual process of him doing that but that was such a violent event for him it probably took the rest of what made him so spectacular and untouchable. Naseem Hamed had a similar aura about him and never bothered fighting again except once after Barrera completely nullified and read him like a book. These types of fighters probably aren’t meant for longevity beyond a certain point or suffering a conclusive loss.

 

As we all know, Roy had a really ugly final part of his career.

However, unless you feel that the guys he lost to would still have beaten him at his best/pre-HW, I’m not sure why you would have ranked him MUCH higher.

You have to see the defeats for what they were.


He had 10 defeats.

From 1989-2004, he only had 1 of them. Just 1 defeat in 50 fights. And that was a DQ.

The other 9 defeats were from 2004-2023.


So: From the age of 20-35, he had 1 defeat.

From the age of 35-54, he had 9 defeats.


He also fought a better group of fighters from 20-35.

So we know what happened.


None of the guys he lost to would have been favoured to have beaten him pre-HW. And many of them would have been lucky to have taken rounds off of him.

 

There’s a few similarities with Naz.


The highly unorthodox style.

A style which wasn’t built for longevity.


Apart from that, they were very different.


Roy had 15 years at the top.

He fought and beat a much better group of fighters.

When he lost, he tried to avenge the defeats.

He fought on with a great will and love for the sport, until his early 50’s.

He didn’t leave the sport after just 10 years, whilst in his 20’s, after his first set back.


Naz never had the drive, will, work ethic or the confidence that Roy possessed.

 

I put far more stock in a fighters wins and achievements than their losses. I dont put much, if any into the low quality run RJJ ended with.