Roy Jones is underrated

Ok, I don't want to get caught up discussing examples here, so allow me to reiterate some of my more fundamental disagreements.

1. Ability is just blatantly a part of what it is to be a great fighter. It's an obvious implication of the statement, "Ray Leonard was a great fighter," that he was very skilled, talented, could beat a lot of guys etc. That is not accounted for by your ranking of fighters purely on the basis of achievements.

2. "Quality of opposition" is presumably one of the most important standards by which one judges a fighter's accomplishments. But what determines whether the opponent that X beat was a quality opponent? Surely only whether they were skilled, talented, could beat a lot of guys etc.! Much of the ideas behind "achievement" thus collapses into ability - which you're trying to exclude.

3. Ignoring ability makes boxing history silly. It means you can justifiably ignore all footage of a fighter, barring the trivial application of checking which fighter won or lost etc. It makes fantasy match-ups weighed up on the basis of styles or abilities meaningless, since ability is supposedly irrelevant to a fighter's placing. And it encourages a bad attitude to comparing fighters: If your rules were applied consistently, nobody would have picked Ward over Kessler.

On what basis, other than "more proven"?

 

No idiot I'm right as always, Jones beating McCallum elevated him above Maske, who doesnt have a win of that standard. Maskes best wins in Barkley and Charles Williams were beaten more convincingly by Toney who Jones dominated

Have you ever actually seen Maske fight, he was blatantly a Euro-bum, rubbish. McCallum was a better fighter and yes McCallum lost to Tiozzo

If anything Griffin should also be rated above Maske as he beat Toney twice.

 

No, you're pulling **** outta your ass as always.

No, it put him one spot behind Tiozzo, who was behind both Hill and Maske.

Prince Charles Williams far exceeded that "standard." He was more accomplished, more proven, and more highly regarded at that weight than McCallum ever was.

Toney's wins were no more "convincing," and they weren't at 175 anyway.

Yes, numerous times.

No he wasn't. That's just a stupid and baseless claim. At the very least he was a good, respectable fighter, as affirmed by his win over a longtime titleholder and the fact that he was favored over Hill.

Not at LHW.

Who was no better or more highly regarded than Maske and is even more qualified to fit your BS definition of a "Eurobum."

What had Toney accomplished at 175?

 

The weight loss thing gets overplayed in regards to Roys punch resistance, it may have had a small effect but the slowing of his reflexes were the reason he started getting KO'd.

By the way Mcgrain, there was guy in the Leonard v Duran 1 scorecard thread yesterday telling everyone you were a 'good tim' - he must think you're ugly or something.

 

Ah that's alright then, I wouldn't wish anyone to be branded with such filth.

 

So Jones being the P4P number 1 in the sport and being one of Boxing's biggest draws is supposed to go over seas to fight DM and risk robbery for little money? That makes sense.

 

I agree; it's a balance of both. I certainly wouldn't weight ability over achievements (so long as "achievements" is understood as a generic term encompassing quality of opposition beaten, longevity, consistency, dominance etc.), but I'd say that it's at least as significant as any one of those individual factors, with the possible exception of quality of opposision beaten. Ignoring it totally, I think, is plain wrong. The idea of "ability" may be abstract and vague as bodhi said. Tough ****. There are similar vagaries involved in rating fighters who never won a title as opposed to those who did, and in comparing a series of very good wins to one or two truly astonishing ones.

 

Well, I can't show you medical records, but I think it's reasonable to believe that a prime Roy wouldn't be getting hit with that left. (I'm only basing that on having watched him avoid those kinds of shots before.) Against serious opponents, he would usually dance away to the side, follow up or go straight into a clinch after throwing something like that; and even on the odd occasion that he did make the "mistake" of hanging around in the pocket, he was quick enough to see those shots coming and smother the opponent or just slip them.

I'm not saying he had an iron chin in his prime, and I think his lost athleticism rather than lost punch resistance is the main factor in him getting beaten now, so who knows what an athletic Roy's chin was like? But, certainly, he was hit with some chin-checkers by Griffin and Toney and didn't flinch, and at worst there's no reason to assume he was going to cave in at the slightest blow.

 

Anyway, I think PowerPuncher has a good point here. Ok, it's a knock on Jones that he didn't have the W over DM. But it's not a necessary condition for being a great champion; not every great champion beat absolutely everybody in the top ten. And it doesn't change the fact that he held almost all the belts and defended them several times against pretty much everybody who was anybody across a 5-year stint. The onus was never on Jones to leave home in any case.

 

I always felt Jones would get pummeled had he been hit cleaner. He was dropped very hard against Lou Del Valle in his prime who wasnt the biggest banger, but noone had ever really been able to time him and hit him that well.
I was quite certain he would start getting knocked out once he slowed. He just has that physical makeup, (very skinny legs), of a guy who doesnt takes shots well, and was fighting in a division where he was the smaller guy (physically), on most occassions. I think Jones is underated as a fighter because of his insistence of carrying on, but not really underrated at LH. The division wasnt great, it was solid but not great.

 

Agree especially considering DM lost to Gonzalez and went life and death with Richard Hall, who both Jones completely dominated. The DM fiasco was blown way out of proportion, I dont think he ever wanted that fight with Jones, he was too big of a hit in his country.

 

I don't agree. I am a big Jones fan, but his resume doesn't justify him being ranked any higher than he generally is. ATG ability, but a merely good resume.

PS: Jones's win over a relatively green Hopkins was not a 'lopsided domination' at all, it came nowhere close to being as emphatic as his win over a more or less prime Toney. It was competitive but ultimately comfortable.

PPS: I'd feel confident putting money on Michael Spinks to beat Roy at lhw. Roy was at his absolute best '94-'96 at smw. He was always a little on the small side for a lhw.