Who's greater - Roy Jones Jr. or Roberto Duran ?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsjQzDaJ9k[/ame]

 

Try to keep to the subject at hand. If this turns into another ****ing Duran-Leonard thread...

 

Leonard
De Jesus
De Jesus
Buchanan
Marcel
Palomino
Moore
Barkley

Hopkins
Toney
Hill
Ruiz

... Yes, the achievements column is very close :roll:

 

Few if any fighters I've seen has looked more effective in their primes than Jones did. Duran was an absolute monster, though, and it's hugely impressive that he carried so much of that up to WW.

 

You have a point, but In Jones' case the wins are one-sided in ways that are pretty rare. Don't know if any other fighter has so one-sided wins over that kind of opposition (Ruiz of course only becomes impressive as opponent because of the size difference).

 

*Waits for Body Head to come in, Caps lock armed*

 

Jones is in the elite class of H2H fighters, up there with Robinson, Duran, Jones, Whitaker, Napoles, Charles etc. - no doubt. I just think Duran is a cut above in some departments. Better defensively, superior when considering all ranges, can impose his kind of fight on most opponents, and has certain trimmings (feints, anticipation of punches) that I haven't seen from Jones.

 

True. I think that counts for something, though dominance is secondary to quality overcome for me.

 

Duran was better, as He has the much stronger resume and the better win, being Leonard. Not to many boxers are better than Duran though, so all is not lost.

Jones looked unbeatable at his best and would have to be one of the top H2H guys out there, he had great speed and power at MW, petty that his resume is not stronger, Hopkins and Toney are great wins. Not fighting DM or Hopkins when he was on top would of helped his cause but they did not happen, for some reason. Sadly the KO's once he was past his best will hurt him. Still Jones is one of the best.

 

Of course. Duran's wins over Leonard and Barkley is absolutely monstrous. He also has perhaps the best losing effort ever (Hagler). For me he's looking fairly good for top 5 p4p. The main argument against is his quit job against Leonard.

 

Yeah, well that's something that's always going to sit differently from person to person. Some people care a lot about it, others don't. I think it was a complete joke and an embarassment, but Duran's mastery in other areas outweighs it, as well as the fact that he has proven the ability to overcome adversity, fight through wars and even beat clowning runners despite being frustrated in the early rounds (Viruet, Fernandez, Gonzalez etc.). None of those guys are Ray Leonard, but it's not like he was a serial quitter against a particular style - quite the opposite. A different scenario would be, say, Mayweather ducking Pacquiao - that way his greatest opportunity would have been tossed down the drain and the accusations of not taking on the very best would be confirmed, which would weigh down his legacy for me.

 

Barkley was ****. If you're including him then;

Roy Jones - Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, Mike McCallum, Montell Griffin, Virgil Hill, John Ruiz, Antonio Tarver


All of those are superior wins to Barkley. Ruiz is Jones' equivalent '**** but good win because they were fighting a bigger opponent'.

 

You answered your own question. Duran was 38 years old and out-slugged a massive and pretty good MW. That's why it's a great win. (Also, Barkley was better than Ruiz IMO.)

If Griffin and McCallum count, then so does Cuevas and Thompson-level contenders for Duran.

 

Well Jeff Lacy and Omar Sheika count for Jones since he was shot when he beat them.

 

Is that's what's happened now? What's the latest? I desperately want to see that fight being made.