Roy Jones is underrated

I agree with this. The Michalczewski thing is overstated. He was a good solid boxer fighting out his reign in Europe. If you look at their common opponents, he was never on Jones's level. If we are going to harp on about him we may as well continually lambast Calzaghe for never fighting Ottke or put it as a footnote of Lennox Lewis's career that he never stepped in with Michael Moorer or Chris Byrd.

 

To be fair, Del Valle did catch him pretty hard; I don't think huge amounts of other fighters would have just shrugged it off. He was also looking the other way (!) when the punch landed, so he didn't have the chance to anticipate it and stiffen his neck. I know that's no excuse, but it does explain why it put him down. He also looked perfectly fine when he got up. I think Jones' chin pre-Tarver is a bit of a mystery, but it's more than a little unfair of people to assume he was always ripe for the picking.

 

Not sure I'm with you on this one, I have to say. It wasn't full of fireworks by any means, but I felt that Roy was getting the better of pretty much all the major exchanges and dominating Hopkins for the most part - beating him to the punch, beating him to the counters (!) and even beating him on the inside on occasion (!!!). Ithink I only gave Hopkins 1 or 2 rounds in the whole thing. Plus, bear in mind that that was Jones' first 12-rounder, and he'd had less than a handful of fights that hadn't just been one or two-round blow-outs. Had his stamina been 100% on point, he might just have shut poor young B-Hop out!

 

I must be coming off as a major RJJ nut-hugger across this thread. Strange, I'm more of a Hopkins fan really.

 

I just don't think it was on the same level as the Toney fight though, which was a complete whitewash. At least Jones-Hopkins was competitive, and Hopkins did win some rounds. I think I had Jones-Hopkins 8-4 or 8-3-1 or 9-3 or something like that, while Jones-Toney was a 12-0 or 11-1.

 

The thing that is confusing about his punch resistance is his fight with Ruiz. No guy who has bad punch resistance who starts their career at JMW can move up to Heavy and take the best shots from a heavy who has decent power, who outweighs him by a very good deal. The only time I saw Jones legitimately hurt in his fight with Ruiz was the first round. Ruiz caught him with 2 big right hands in a row and he got a little hurt by those but came right back.

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I thought he was going to get KO'd after that. But he went on to box beautifully and take the occasional right hand when he needed to.

If you watch the Lou Del Valle KD Roy was standing in a horrible position, it was almost like inviting the punch -- also Lou has been a sparring partner of Jones in the past which could've been a reason why he had the success he did. And the shot was hard, sounded like a bat hit him. It was a big shot and he was buzzed by it. His legs weren't gone (although of the KD had to do with the force, look at his back foot slip -- but he was buzzed no doubt), he had his senses with him... Lou may not have been a devastating puncher, but the guy does have power, it's pretty decent... he also KD Virgil Hill.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0_FAx_bK08&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0_FAx_bK08&feature=related[/ame]

Before the tarver fight, I think the only fight where Roy was hit hard and clean continually was the 1st Griffin fight. He tagged Roy with some mean full impact shots. Although he was not a big puncher, Roy never was hurt by any of those punches. People with bad punch resistance can't take so many clean shots without getting rocked.

I have studied all of his fights. I don't see horrible punch resistance in his prime... and yes IT IS provable, as he WAS hit cleanly at times. By prime I am referring to 94/95 - 01/02.

 

I think we have enough tape on Jones to make the assessment of whether he had a bad punch resistance than not. We have all his fights, some being on youtube now, where he was hit cleanly, sometimes with full impact. It's not like he is a obscure fighter from the early 1900's and we possess no video on. No one is that slick to be unhittable, and Roy's chin was definitely tested. Tested by a devastating puncher? No, but by guys who had pretty decent punching power? Yes.

 

****

 

I dont think he had a horrible chin, but I do think his speed kept him out of a lot of sticky situations.
I think because hes slowed, fighters are able to land good solid shots on him now, right on the button, and thats why guys like Johnson and even Tarver who arent devastating punchers, have knocked him out with single shots.

 

Now I'm a Roy Jones fan though I am critical of him lately but he doesn't have a good chin, in his prime he never ever got hit with a punch with full on mustard on it and the one time he did get hit with that solid punch by Lou Del Valle, his legs turned into spaghetti and got knocked down hard.

 

But he was shown to get hit by solid hard shots prior to him slowing down -- some very cleanly. I don't usually count his fight with Hopkins and Toney for judging his chin, because he had the ability to take a lot of steam off of shots by just turning his head just enough to only be hit with it in a glancing way... although hops did catch him some.

This version of Jones we see now would've got KO'd by that shot from Lou. His punch resistance was not iron, but it wasn't weak. He got old, his body was in shock from the weight loss (it does have a big affect) and he had a average jaw. I agree though most of it has to do with his reflexes diminishing and his confidence. The Johnson loss had more to do with his complete loss of confidence and to be honest he got rocked in the 5th round of that fight when he was against the ropes. I am not going to judge his punch resistance by what we see now, that is a unfair assessment.

You have to admit though, that shot Valle caught him with was pretty damn hard. Sounded like a shot gun.

 

His legs didn't turn into spaghetti! I don't he had a great chin in his prime, but it wasn't bad. He got hit more than just that time by Valle... but Valle got full extension on it. No glass jawed fighter is going to take a shot like that. Roy now would be out cold.

 

You must be very desperate to post things like that. Just proves my point: I gont into your head. :hey

 

I am a big Philly/Hop phan, and had RJJ 10-2 I believe although 9-3 might be a possibility as well? Neither guy really asserted themself in this fight. They both had enormous respect for one another and it showed in the performance. Both fought more conservative than either had previously, regardlees of what both of their detractors say. It seemed like Roy won a lopsided fight, but not in dominat fashion as the cards might suggest. There was no round for either guy where you saw them dominate the other. I thought Hop won 2 rds from 10-12 (might have been 3???) and looked like he found or something he could build off of. Either way it was to late. And I am not sure if Hop's figured him out or RJJ turned it down another notch or coasted on his belief that he was he ahead??? I believe a second fight could have been made (and would have shown a better performance than the first fight), and surely should of at least6+ years ago..I have little intrest in their upcoming bout!

 

Hey, I only will answer on this post of yours because it seems we aren't that far away from each other actually.

I agree with the highlighted part. I still ignore ability when I make rankings because it's just too much speculation - do you rate a guy who beat bums impressivly over a guy who struggled with atg opposition? What about fighters who fight down to the level of their opponents? - and just makes it too hard for me to compile a list. But I don't make rankings but I work in Tier lists using your definition of achievements. Thus ability may be the factor that makes the difference to a list which involves plain ranking. Know what I mean?