Roy Jones is underrated

Most overrated fighter on the internet. He was a great, and he'd give anyone a fight but not in the mix for any top spot in the traditional divisions.

 

Who beats him, then? 160-168.

 

True dat...I've always maintained that Roy Jones had the physical capabilities to actually KO every opponent his' ever met in the ring..except maybe BHop...Bernard had a Hagleresque chin...everybody else he could have KO'd...he was the gifted...slick,super-fast,hard-punching,cat-like refelexes...he had it all...

There is'nt one fighter from 160-190 I'd favour over a prime Roy Jones....sure cats like Ezzard charles,Michael Spinks,Bob Foster etc could make it very close...but still,none of them had the skills set Roy Jones had...Too bad he never had the warrior mentality..carried people in fights too many times...

But H2H in an ATG sense...yeah he's up there.

 

Well, even that version of Jones had the athletic abilities that made him great. In fact, I don't think he even really developed that much between Hopkins and Toney (which I'd rate as his best performance). He always had that innate sense of range, counter-punching ability, reflexes and the speed and power that made him such a force. The only visibly rough edge was stamina: he hadn't been past 10 when he fought Hopkins, and visibly faded in the later rounds. (It could have been a shut-out otherwise.) Over 15 rounds with someone as durable and clever as Monzon, that might be an issue. Stamina issues aside, I think he has the boxing ability to do a job on pretty much anyone, perhaps with the exception of Hagler, maybe someone like Burley.

(And for the record, I'm not sure he was that "protected" on the way up considering his age. After only Jones' third or fourth pro fight his handlers were talking about putting him in for 8 and 10 round fights, and were talking about fighting for a title within 12-18 months.)

 

And this thread is about Jones beeing underated. Just for the record, I don't think Jones would last with any of the guys in bold - and some others like Archie Moore, Harold Johnson, Tommy Loughran, Billy Conn would beat him also at lhw.

 

His last fight at MW was his 26th, In those 26 fights he fought a better fighter than Monzon and another world champion, on his 27th he shut out another fighter better than Monzon. Monzon was slower than both those men, easier to hit, less pressure than young BHOP, without being a big puncher. Your right it would be cruel to the slow and predictable Monzon :yep

BTW if you include amateur fights Jones may have had more fights than Monzon at that stage

 

Yeah, but that's the same kind of thing they said about Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali in 1964 - '65.
A flashy inexperienced upstart, wouldn't have stood a chance against Dempsey, Louis, Johnson, Tunney etc.

 

Yeah but Ali proved he could. Jones did not. You can't rank a guy on what he perhaps might have done.

 

atsch That's how everybody rates everybody. If you only go by what a guy proved he could do, then there's no reason to assume that Sugar Ray Robinson would have beaten Cory Spinks.

Ridicuous reasoning.

 

And for a reason. Rating people on what hey perhaps might have done is like living with your head in the clouds. Sorry.

 

Not really, especially when they dominate comparable opposition. Read Jersey Joes post, its spot on.

 

Not really. I read it and was constantly shaking my head because I disagree with it so much. It's nuthugging at it's finest yeah. It totally ignores everything that goes against Jones, just like in his opening post. I won't argue things I already argued in this thread. I made my point. Take it or leave it.