Why was Roy Jones Jr. never an Boxing Super Star?

RJJ was on the cusp, but he didn't make it because he wasn't in any exciting fights in his prime and more importantly, no names.

May and Pac only became superstars after DLH. They've maintained because they are actually good though. May and Pac couldn't attract flies to their fights before hand. You could argue their primes and exciting fights took place before DLH. DLH was a superstar because he won the Olympics and beat names like Chavez and Whitaker, plus he was exciting.

Basically you don't get super stardom unless to win against other popular fighters and unfortunately for RJJ there were none around his division.

 

Prior to the Ruiz fight, Jones was very well respected as a boxer but he simply was not a draw. His PPV's were struggling to get 100,000 buys and HBO were losing money of every fight.

He left the most competitive division in boxing by jumping from super middle to light heavy. He chose to fight an old McCallum, Griffin, Hill, De Valle instead of Benn, Collins, Eubank, McClellan.

He made some terrible career choices, took too little risk in the ring and always was the business man and promoter first and great boxer second. The fans want fighters who strive for greatness to make the big fights and perform like a true champion when required.

Jones had all the talent but not the drive or personality or promotional team to cross over.

 

Roy was too black and too gangsta to be a real crossover star. Kind of aloof and not all that friendly.

 

He was. People were in awe of him. It was his competition that sucked.

 

1. Sugar Ray Leonard was NEVER on PPV (PPV was barely in existance during his era)

2. Roy was a household name in the U.S. on par with some of the biggest athletes in any major U.S. sport during the 90's-early 2000's.

3. There were no "name" opponents in or around his weight class during the height of his run that could've gotten him a PPV fight.

4. If you look at any of the other PPV stars, it took a "passing of the torch" type of fight with another well known, well established star in the sport for them to become a major PPV attraction.

Also, Roy's 1st PPV fight with Ruiz did pretty decent numbers, considering the reputation of his opponent, and netted him around 25 Million dollars.

And the type of ratings he used to regularly bring in on regular HBO has yet to be matched by any fighter since he fell off.

 

Hard to be a Superstar when you refuse to make big fights and handpick so many fights. Look at the Ruiz fight it was like a sparring session. Boring. Jones in several rounds landed fewer than 10 punches.

Some of Jones PPV's early in his HBO career only sold 90k buys. That is awful.

He was more of a showman than a fighter. He wasn't interested in fighting the best out there and we know why it is because he was harboring a Glass Jaw.

 

well said.

jones and hopkins were great fighters in poor divisions and neither hit PPV gold.

hopkins only really got on PPV when he destroyed tito and dismantled oscar.

 

That wasn't Roy's first PPV fight and it sold 600k PPV buys Roy didn't make 25 million not sure where you are getting that number from (you probably just made it up) it would have to sold almost triple that for Jones to make 25 mil. His other successful PPV was against Trinidad and Jones got stiffed by Don King for the majority of the purse for that fight.

You have no clue what you are talking about.

 

How do you call James Toney a no name ?