Roy Jones: How Good Was He?

Is this even a question? The RJJ/Ruiz fight was a gimmick and barely factors into his legacy for me. A Lennox fight would have been very bad for Roy's health.

 

He was great.

His performance against Toney was one of the best I've seen.

 

RJJ was better than Bhop prime for prime. More skilled, did a lot of crazy unorthodox $hit that you don't see everyday. Bhop was more of a fundamentally sound, all terrain stylist, but nowhere near as impressive as prime RJJ. Pound for pound he was a greater specimen than Bhop was.

Bhop may have not been completely prime against Bhop, given the inexperience, but he was still a very good fighter on film and this is clear in his fights just before and after RJJ I.

I also disagree with Bhop having the better resume. I don't see an argument for that to be honest. Jones has wins over Griffin, Hill, Toney, Bhop, Reggie Johnson, undefeated Glen Kelly & Julio Cesar Gonzalez, Clinton Woods, ruiz, Tarver, Harding, Hall, Sosa, Tate, Thornton, and an underrated win over Malinga. His resume has A LOT of depth to it, and it has a nice, diverse mix of punchers & technicians. I certainly rank RJJ's resume over Bhop's. Like, Bhop has Trinidad, Pavlik, Keith Holmes, Joppy, Tarver, Pascal, Taylor (depending on how you scored it), DLH, Jackson, Mercado, and that's it really. So basically his top 3 wins have to be Trinidad, Tarver and Pavlik. His resume is not better than RJJ's.

Funny you say that he ducked the rematch in the 2000s. Based on what I saw it was just a matter of politics and RJJ not getting the purse he wanted against a threatening opponent. I give bhop 0 credit for beating RJJ in 2010.

 

See my most recent post. Jones has a lot of depth to his resume and people need to accept he was a great fighter, perhaps not "THE MAN" in any of his division at any point but RJJ exhibited greatness that we may never see again

 

Or any real heavyweight for that matter, Ruiz was a complete joke.

Can anyone in their right mind seeing Jones beat the likes of Lewis, Klitschkos, Tyson, Holyfield, Tua, Golota, Byrd, Oquendo, Rahman, Maskaev, Johnson, McCline, Grant, Botha, Briggs, Brewster etc.

I even see him struggling and quite possibly losing to the likes of Maurice Harris, Jefferson, and Monte Barrett and probably a few others.

Roy was not a legitimate heavyweight, he would have lost to almost anyone who wasn't a joke like Ruiz.

 

I like him but he's overrated. Tarver beat him fair and square. He just had his career defining victory, comes down from Heavy and struggles, ok, the weight issue. Second fight, he gets KTFO, still the weight issue? No, bs.

 

Oh yeah, Ruiz was a complete joke, yet he managed to beat, and knock down past prime Holyfield, give Holyfield hell in all 3 matches, beat Rahman, Valuev and Golota. He was a legitimate heavyweight with an ugly but effective style but I'm not buying that he was a joke by any means. The fact that a natural LHW in RJJ schooled Ruiz easily makes the win better. I'm not saying Ruiz was an amazing fighter but he was a good HW.

 

You clearly downplay the significance of Hopkins top wins, most boxing fans and non-Jones fanboys all seem to agree that Hopkins has the deeper resume, Jones was constantly criticized for fighting week opposition in the late 90s/early 2000s. Roy has some good wins sure, but his resume just isn't on par with Bernards.

As far the win over Jones not meaning anything in 2010 i'd agree, But Roy's win over Hopkins in 1993 doesn't mean a lot either, certainly not as much as Jones fans would like people to think. I mean for crying out loud, Jones fanboys act as if it's one of the greatest wins ever, even the BHOP was green and had yet to achieve anything in his career, it was a fight between two rising prospects at the time, and Jones experience saw him through on the night. Hopkins started boxing at a much later age, and was not yet the fighter we know him to me. By the logic of most Jones fans Clinton Mitchell also has a great win over Hopkins.

 

He did better than he should have as a result of corrupt judging that gave him gift wins, and bad reffing that let him cheat and foul excessively, he stinks. Everyone knows that w/o the constant fouling and corrupt judges Ruiz was nothing, just a bum who learned to cheat in the gym and maybe reinvented his stye a little bit after getting destroyed by Tua, but a good heavyweight he was not. Golota clearly beat him, Holyfield got the best of him, but Ruiz had the ref and judges on his side, had to fake low blows in order to find a way out of the Johnson fight and not lose and so on. Ruiz was an absolute joke of a fighter.

Read this. It should shed some light on the Ruiz issue, he was a fraud. Plain and simple.

http://www.eatthemushroom.com/mag/article.asp?id=459&catID=6

 

Who wins, both in prime, Calzaghe or Jones?

 

Well you can't really label me a RJJ fanboy, I gave a reasonable break down of why RJJ has the superior resume, and you have no answer for it. Tell me, which of Bhop's wins are better than RJJ's wins over Toney, Johnson, Griffin, or Hill? Trinidad, Pavlik and Tarver just don't match up. I completely disagree that Bhop has a better resume.

First of all, the version of Bhop that Jones beat is a FAR more impressive win than Bhop's win over RJJ. Obviously. you can't tell me that Bhop wasn't a very good fighter against RJJ. Just look at the f*cking film. Don't tell me that just because of his inexperience and lack of achievements, that it wasn't a good win, because that kind of logic doesn't work.

Just a few years after the RJJ defeat, Bhop was able to beat Mercado, and TKO'd John David Jackson. Sh*t, in a few years after the loss to RJJ, Bhop went on to tko Glen Johnson, which I think is pretty much the best I've ever seen Bhop look on film, next to the Tito Trinidad performance. So he was still a very very solid fighter there, it was a very good win for RJJ.

 

Zaggers is in my top 5 all time favorite fighters but I still have to say Roy.

 

I guess if he was such a joke of a fighter than so is Holyfield who got rocked and badly hurt by Ruiz. I don't like Ruiz either but he was a good HW. not a bad scalp for Jones at all.

 

Why bring up Calzaghe? Isn't there enough
threads about Jones - Calzaghe h2h match ups already?

 

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