Roy Jones' Legacy...

Exactly what I've always felt.

Following his match against Clinton Woods in september of 2002, he gained some 20 Lbs to bulk up and fight John Ruiz 6 months later. His next match would be against Tarver another 8 months down the road, and after he dropped the same 20 lbs. In just over a years ( 14 months ), Jones gained and lost a combined 40 lbs. Not to mention, was around 34 years of age at this point. I find it strange how few ever mention this.

 

Stonehands is going to have a heart attack when he sees this.

 

He'll get over it.

 

what if he could captured another title at Supermiddle Weight....

Could be possible...

 

What about you?

 

Myself, i find him hard to rate. On one hand, he has tremendous accomplishments in that he's arguably THE hardest middleweight and supersmiddleweight in history to beat, and a top10/5 lightheavyweight, fighting in a time where LHW's weigh as much as heavyweights used to do pre-60's. He beat a legend in Hopkins with relative ease and beat another legend in James Toney without any effort nor dropping any round. Beating Ruiz rather comfortably, a top4 heavyweight at that time, is not a small accomplishment either, nor is knocking out Hill with a single bodyshot and dominating the LHW division for 6 or so years. When you see him toy with Pazianza with one of the greatest finishes in history.... you know you're looking at a legend.


His list of impressive names is somewhat short, but i think it's worthy to make two comments on this:

1. He still beat legends in Hopkins and Toney plus Ruiz who has 50lbs of natural weight on him.

2. His dominance of the LHW division was pretty long and consistent. They weren't the best ever, but most were ranked and guys like Hagler and Hopkins didn't face THAT special opposition at middleweight either, but they are very much appreciated.

3. There weren't that many others to fight. Eubank was fading badly when Jones came up, and Benn was ruined by McClellan, and vise versa. Darius Michalchewski made unwarranted claims for money although he IS a missing name on Jones' resume. Still, that's only one name. Besides him, i can't think of anyone who was in or around his division who was on the top that he didn't fight. On top of that, fighters weren't exactly jumping on the idea of getting in the ring with Jones, considering he looked more than invincible.

4. Jones was the fighter of the 90's, no doubt about it. And that's saying a lot. The 90's was loaded with talent (especially the heavyweights), and apart from that, to be the fighter of the decade, you gotta be made of something special. Very special.


I'm not really sure where i'd rank him, also because i don't know about all the lower weight fighters, but he's one hell of a boxer, that's for sure..

 

I second this post,

I don't know exactly where I'd rate him either, but I think he definately makes a top 25 p4p list, in fact I'd probably place him significantly higher. I said earlier that I felt his accomplishments were very much on par with the fabulous 4 of the 1980's. Most of those guys particularly Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard make a lot of people's top 10. You did a nice job of outlining his best acheivements as did the starter of the thread. The level padding on his record is literally next to nothing, especially when you consider that he was fighting guys who were 16-1 within his first 3 pro fights - something that I know for a fact a lot of greats did not start off doing.

 

The fab four of the 1980s had a better resumes because they fought each other. Nothing helps your legacy as much as fighting the best ATG fighters ever. Roy didn't.

 

Roy Jones fought the best available men of his era, Toney, Hopkins, Hill, McCallum, Griffin, etc. You can't ask anymore of that from someone. Now, I agree that he could have fought Darius Michalczewski, but then none of the fab four seemed particularly estatic to fight Mike McCallum when he was an eminant force during the 80's either.

Jones won world titles at middleweight, supermiddleweight, lightheavyweight, and heavyweight - something that nobody had done since Bob Fitzsimmons did it over a century earlier. He ruled the lightheavyweight division longer than Hagler had reigned at middleweight or Duran at lightweight. Lastly, I don't know exactly how many ranked opponents he fought, but looking at his rather lengthy record and how many title fights he was in, including actual title matches, eliminations, etc. I'm guessing he had to have spent the bulk of his career in there with world class opposition.. His record is virtually paddless, even going back to when he had fewer fights than can be counted on one hand.

To say that the fab four was better on the basis of having a few more wins over the elite is okay. But I see no reasonable argument harboring the claim that Jones was not at least closely on par.