Hypothetical question about Tyson and RJJ

If Tyson would have retired after Spinks I would rank him lower. Not Top15. His second reing wasn´t good but it still adds to his resume overall imo.

Jones resume would look better but the Tarver win is his second best win at lhw and his fourth best win overall. I think missing that would drop him, especially when he is considered past his best in those losses he had after Ruiz. I wouldn´t rank him higher as I do have him now.

 

RJ would have to be rated very very high definitely with the elite ATGs.

Tyson would be rated high but with a big question mark,since he was still young. Some people would have rated him as one of the greatest HTH but lacking in resume. At least with Jones he had been around for a very long time and was dominant against every one up to that point(save 1st Griffith fight)

 

I strongly disagree with you about Roy Jones.:-nono:nono

 

Jones should have retired after Tarver 1, not Ruiz, the Tarver win adds to his legacy

 

I agree, Tarver actually talked people into believing he was something special. The lazy bum couldnt get up for any fight besides Jones his entire career, but youre right he should have stopped after the first Tarver fight. There was noone else for him to fight and noone really took him serious as a heavyweight. Lewis Tyson forget it, maybe he would have beaten Holyfield, but probably not at that time.

 

I dont think it's right to rank fighters DOWN for post-prime losses, so wherever RJJ "would be" ranked if he had retired then, that's where he SHOULD BE ranked now.

Same with Tyson really, even though it's more understandable, but if we are ranking on achievements there's no reason to say he DROPPED after the Spinks fight. He beat Bruno x2, Carl Williams, Ruddock x 2, destroyed some more fringe-contenders, all AFTER the Spinks fight.
I think he was being OVER-rated in the aftermath of the Spinks fight.

 

I dont think its right either, but it happens. When a guy like Jones dominates everyone and never loses its easy to pick him to beat anyone. When you see the guy get knocked out cold by single shots it changes the mindset. When you watched Jones and Tyson it was very hard for anyone to envision how they would be defeated at their peaks.

 

In the case of RJJ it still is.

Tyson, I was never sold on 100%. Like many others I always thought he was beatable.

RJJ losing to Tarver or Johnson or Calzaghe or whatever has about as much impact as Ali's loss to Leon Spinks.

 

See I always thought Tarver would give Jones problems, because Tarver was tall, and was a counterpuncher and he waited for Jones till the cows came home, to lead, and thats how you get to another counterpuncher, you make them lead.

 

First and foremost I look at the wins over their best opposition and losses dont exactly cancel them out. The wins are more important to me, then I look at the losses and the circumstances behind them...but I gotta say Roy's past prime disaster has not helped him at all.

Roy was around 25-35 when he beat Ruiz...I think I liked him closer to the 25 when Jawny came back to get a few wins and showed some longevity but then I thought of Roy closer to the 35 when he got embarrassed two fights on the trot. He floats around that range depending on what Im feeling but anything after and including Johnson I totally ignore when Im trying to be objective and the second Tarver fight doesnt hold a hell of a lot of weight with me anyway. If Im going to mark him down its on other things.

The only thing I guess is that you do tend to factor his chin in to H2H matches a little more. But even still I dont pick many people over Roy, that hasnt really changed.

 

I think Tarver gets underrated, he was really only ever up for Jones, but his run up until 2006 was pretty impressive and he beat much of the best LHWs in that time, thought he got shafted in the first Johnson fight to.

He was 35 himself when he got to beat Jones, then going into the movie business playing Rocky certainly didnt do him any favours

 

People do assume hes going to have a china glass chin in his prime based off those KO losses. Its hard to say because he didnt take much punnishment in his prime, but he would get hit flush a times, that cant be avoided completely in boxing. Punch resistance is known to go downwith age sometimes. He also took a flush right from Ruiz who put Holyfield down with the same shot at HW

 

I personally dont gush at the vag at the shots he took from Ruiz. I just dont rate him as a puncher and that fight was more or less a glorified sparring session..mainly because Roy controlled it that way though.

I dont pick guys like Foster or Spinks or even Monzon to potentially stop Roy because he has a weak chin. I think potentially they could stop about anyone.
At the same time I do think its one of the few *****s in his very impressive armour ..if you really heavily pick apart his fights he can show a reluctance to engage sometimes after taking a couple of clean ones and perhaps has been subtly buzzed a couple of times..but who hasnt.
The haters always seem to find these little things and there is some truth in them...the fanboys tend to takes things a little more on face value and assume because Roy was never clearly chicken dancing hurt in his prime his chin is iron. Eye of the beholder I guess.

The truth is always somewhere in the middle with these things.