There's a double standard here. Ray Robinson lost 10 times to guys who no one has ever heard of when he was past his best. No on cares. Because everyone knows he would have beaten them in his prime. These losses aren't even mentioned. Yet Jones loses to Calzaghe, Tarver, Hopkins, Green etc and suddenly he 'never was that good'. Roy Jones was awesome in his prime. Maybe not as good as some people make out but still mentally good.
For me, his career was over when he got KO'd by Tarver/Johnson. No one should get props for beating Jones Jnr after that, it just proved how far he'd gone. He should of stayed at heavyweight.
I personally don't hold his recent losses against him at all. They just prevented him from adding to his legacy...whilst not really taking anything away from it.
He might be able to sneak inside a top 20 due almost entirely to his H2H ability. So, maybe 5-10 spots higher than he actually is.
^ This Plus add the fact that after he won a HW title he came back down and captured the undisputed light heavy weight title how that accolade is never factored is beyond me.
:roflatsch The Ruiz fight was meaningless. Ruiz was just another handpicked opponent by Roy. Ruiz wasn't THE Heavyweight Champion Lennox Lewis was.
If he retired after Ruiz he be top 15,now hes probably top 50,but he was on peds most of his career so its hard to place him really
I have him probably around the 50 mark. I think he is somewhat over-rated and gets a pass for being on peds, I voted 50-100.
The problem is that Jones beat Ruiz too easy and had no other fights at the weight. This led people to accuse him of picking out the only champion at the weight he knew he could beat easy just to add a heavyweight title to his resume. He needed to win more fights at heavyweight against challenging opposition for his spell in the division to matter all that much, so if he had retired after beating Ruiz he would have left a lot of questions left unanswered so I couldn't, and dont, give that heavyweight title win much weight. Certainly I would rate him the top Light Heavyweight of the 1990's and one of the top Super Middleweight but, again, there were unanswered questions for him in those divisions, but more so Super Middleweight where he only managed to fight one big name in Toney and missed out on Eubank, Benn, Liles, Little and Nunn. P4P talent wise I think he was likely the best around in that decade, but on the face of it there are some big gaps in his resume. Up until his first fight with Tarver his best wins were Hopkins, Toney, Hill and Johnson which are good and strong but after 14 years as a pro and having come through the talent-packed Super Middleweight division in its strongest ever period one would have hoped he'd of picked up a few more of the top names.