Roy Jones jnr, thoughts please.

I'm a massive fan of jones, one of the few fighters ever that i can watch time and time again and still be in total awe of what he could do in a ring and he did do it against top level boxers not just bums.

However i can also see the other side of the coin with jones, he did infuriate me when he was at his best, there was some fights where he was going through the motions, clowing about with fighters, some who shouldn't have been in the same ring as him. i don't think we seen enough of roy at his top level, but when he was motivated and at his absolute best, close to unstoppable IMO and a real joy at least for me to watch

 

Roy Jones jnr, thoughts please. :think

Roy Jones ability > Roy Jones career.

Not saying he had a bad career, he had a great career but lets be honest, someone with this guys outrageous ability should be being discussed in the same mould as the original Sugar Ray but he ****ed it up IMHO.

 

Agree with the above post.

Jones is one of my favourites. Weren't any 'matinee' fights for him but the likes of Michalewski wouldn't have done him a disservice (Roy should've been wanting that fight, with a record like that you'd want to prove your superiority) and I wish he'd retired after the first Tarvr fight.

All these intangibles have been brought up post-Tarver 2. People think Roy 'faked' his way through that many years and say he hand-picked opponents to avoid getting his 'glass jaw' exposed. No one with a glass jaw is gonna' campaign at Heavy, even against a relatively 'soft hitter' like Ruiz.

I stick by the theory of Roy's legs deserting him after years of weight-jumping.

 

I use to wonder the same thing. Then, when Jone's faced Tarver in their 3rd fight, his legs looked good as new. Jones was physically superior to most anyone in his 3rd fight with Tarver. Jones' psyche is what was altered there.

Jones is hard to bracket for purists, because Jones fought with a style that not all can benefit from. I'm guilty of looking for appreciation elsewhere. As a child, I use to imagine myself as the next Whitaker combined Chavez combined with McCallum. I thought that would give me technical superiority to anyone. I was still in high school when Jones beat Toney for the 168 lb title. That performance left me with the impression that it was great, and something I could never do. That performance reminded us that some are above our normal perception of technique.

I watched Jones fight on against seemingly inferior opposition. The opposition would have been fine for any other fighter, but not one with Jones' ability.

After Tarver, the usually forgivable age of 35, old Jones emerged. This Jones was not devoid of talent, but it was less than what we expected.

Roy Jones' prime is still one of great wonderment. Jones is still capable of being a top 10 fighter at super middle and light heavy several years past his best. Jones just doesn't realize that he is older. Jones has recently brought his father in to remind him of the fighter that he once was. Sadly, he isn't bringing anyone in to tell him that he is not the fighter he once was. Jones has much more left than many fighters his age possesses. Jones needs someone to show him how to fight with what he has left, instead of trying to remind him of what he was.

 

If they would had give him a chin, he would have be the best fighter ever. He has charisma, unbelievable speed and reflex, good power, excelent technique, heart, stamina.

 

He was cocky. No question about it. Jones was sort of like the Floyd Mayweather of the 90's, if that's a reasonable comparison. But I do think that he was probably the best fighter of that decade, or at least one of the very top 3. When he was hot, he was very explosive and could demolish 20 something and 0 fighters like going through thin air. His rematch with Montell Griffin was one such fight. Jones had his flat performances, and in truth did not exactly live in an era of superb middleweights and lightheavys. But, he did show that he was a notch above even some of the best champions of the 90's.

 

It had nothing to do with his chin, it had more to do with Roy dropping back down to 175 after his biggest accomplishment, beating Ruiz at HWT & not fighting every possible great opponent to test his ATG ability to the full.

Roy`s chin was barely touched until he turned 34 yrs old, with 90% of his career done & dusted.
His skills eroded after that age & sticking Hagler`s chin on him aint gonna give him the offensive weaponry to do what he used to do in his prime, he would have still lost to the Johnson`s & Calzaghe`s as they had more left in the tank, plain & simple.

:good

 

the thoughts above paint rjj to the very minor of details.

the one thought i have that stand out above all other is that in boxing history, there where 3 boxers (or 4) to me that where percieved by the entire world in my eyes as utterly invicible. so invicible that they truly represented the best and most gifted of a human being and could not be beaten.

jones fought with such a amusing and charismatic style that he dared common fans to watch boxing like when ali and tyson where in their primes.


muhammad ali
mike tyson
roy jones jr.

and i believe jim jeffries

their primes where utterly invincible when they where young and undefeated. i remember when i learned about tyson's and jones' first losses it shattered my whole angle of looking at them more so then any other fighters.

i agree with both bill and elindiomonzon,

i think his drop down in weight was the reason why jones was blasted out quickly, i can think of chris byrd and how durable he was to then drop down to middle and get knocked out. but also, his confidence was very shattered from that loss, he may never be what he was before... and that may equate in a way to a fighters ability to take a punch.

but like rekcutnevets said, and i agree with this utterly.

he looked like his old self in the 3rd fight, he was all roy jones jr. except the oozing confidence and imo that why he lost. i was gettng absolutely frustrated watching that fight, when he start to show boat, he began to win, when he started to uppercut off the ropes, tarver was getting weary. it was the devastating knock out that made "his record skip" and he never had the dominant rythm that he could use to dectate a fight. i could see him trying so hard to find that rythm despite his advanced age in the calzaghe fight, but he was losing a step at that point.

one other opinion too that i would like to say,

jones opposition is horribly horribly horribly underated. it makes me cringe to hear that jones fought no one or he wasted his talent or anything like that. the "nobodies" he fought where distinguished journeymen or fringe contenders like merqui sosa, thomas tate, derrick harmon, david talesco where very able fighters.

and imho, i have jones the 10th greatest fighter of all time. haha, i must be in some minority for that, but i stand by it.

 

Nothing wrong with Jones being 10th IMO, he was class.

Ps. Id perhaps add Robinson to that invincible list.

 

Good post, his career gets pretty underrated in truth too, mainly because he made it all look so easy

 

This is in essence the problem, that and the fact HBO paid him $5-$8m per fight and weren't pushing for big fights, neither were there any PPV blockbusters. I think DM was offered the fight but he wasn't taking it. Lets also not forget RJJ offered BHOPs the rematch for 40% of the purse.

The thing about Jones is he left his jaw out to dry in those KO losses, and you just can't do that, in his prime he slips those shots easily, so he doesn't have to worry about bracing himself, but in those losses his head was stationary and just hanging out there

Jones was also 35 and had probably been slow fading from 1998 onwards and probably the reason he wanted a Tyson fight so bad

Jones also took flush rights from Ruiz and Hopkins amongst others in his career, and Ruiz was a 230lb HW who kd'ed Holy with the same shot. He also took plenty of shots in the first Tarver fight

 

Except Jones probably wouldnt lose a round against Castillo, DLH, Hatton, Judah. Jones was far more gifted than Lil Floyd

 

I'm a self-confessed lover of Jones. Plain and simple, I think he was fan****ingtastic.

 

That Jones-Calzaghe fight must have been hard to watch for you