He's over rated at 175 .. was an exceptional middle and super middle .. at all the weights a terrific fighter ..
Doubtful if Tyson blew away any top durable opponents like Jones blew away Tate and Malinga. No one else stopped Tate and the only other times Malinga were stopped were his last two fights. And Hill was also only stopped one other time.
Malinga had never been stopped at this point and wouldn't be after Jones for another 6 years in his last two bouts. Among other things he went the distance with Nigel Benn twice either side of Jones. Jones is still campaigning at 160 but steps up and stays busy. He didn't lose a round yet Mark tries to paint this fight as a negative. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Tyson had plenty of wild moments but plenty of special moments as well. I think you know enough of me to know that I watch enough tape to be able to judge fighters. Prime Mike had a better jab than RJJ, had a far better chin p4p, better defensive manoeuvres from mid-range and more efficient footwork. Prime Tyson was a well-drilled technical offensive fighter. It's no shame to give them both their props whilst recognising that both did things better than the other one. Camacho, Leonard, Hearns, Taylor, Judah could all rival Jones for speed on certain punches. Of course, I agree that Jones' speed and reflex was insane. Positive drug tests amongst other things does put an asterisk against his name when you compare him to the very best to have stepped in the ring, but this is no shame. RJJ is undoubtedly one of the finest athletes to step into the ring but I do believe that outside of the Toney fight, it's quite hard to find the fights on his record that allow me to rank him as highly as I would like to p4p. My p4p rankings rely on ring record, skillset /abilities demonstrated on film and my assessment of their H2H ability. RJJ ranks highly on the last two but when we talk about the very elite, the first one is the key factor.
I've still never seen anything like the finishing knockdown against Pazienza. Sure Vinny was outmatched and hurt but those uppercuts with either hand as Vinny was going backwards were amazingly accurate and blindingly fast. They were still fast in slow motion. Incredible athleticism and talent.
Mike had very good technique for a HW, and had better fundamentals than Roy. Neither thing has been disputed by anyone here, so don't know why it keeps popping up. As I said, what set Roy apart was his reflexes and his ability to get in and out of range with pure speed and athleticism. His hand speed was also phenomenal, but, as you say, not unrivalled. "Outside of the Toney fight" is a pretty big "outside". Give me one other example where the top p4p guy got schooled like that? There might be one ore two (even though I can't come to think of any now) but if not unique it's still exceedingly rare. The Hopkins win was really good in hindsight as well. It would take over 20 years for anyone to beat Hopkins that clearly again. 20 years is an eternity in boxing and Hopkins faced mainly contenders and title holders during that time. Griffin, Hill, Johnson and Tarver were also solid top contenders/title holders. That's his top 3 tier opponents. Solid top contenders. And behind that a bunch of lesser contenders, but guys that were ranked nonetheless. You have to go to his tier 4 opponents to get to the unranked guys. As I keep repeating, there are a two or three good fighters missing from his resume, but the thinking that he has a thin cherry picked resume is without base.
We agree almost to the tee on Roy's talents I guess. Except that I look at his overall qualities and break it down. I would rank Benitez, PBF, Duran and Ali, Pep, Whitaker at least his equal or superior in terms of reflexive head movement as they impress me more on film of making instant head adjustments from closer to their opponent. Where Roy could back up to the ropes and momentarily close his eyes as he instinctively turned away to avoid a punch, Duran is rolling last minute or slipping (Roy's reflexive movements have never impressed me as much as Duran slipping Leonard's combinations and toying with him up close in Montreal), Benitez rolls, slips, shifts, Ali rolls, slips or throws the pull counter, RJJ rolls, pull counters and gets out of there. I always give more props to the guy who is standing right in front of the guy showing excellent defensive reflexive movements whilst standing in pocket, making them miss and making them pay, as opposed to jumping out of range, to avoid fire. I'm ranting unnecessarily because at the same time, I favour boxers who don't take unnecessary punishment. I really really like Roy and believe that he's Ali's equal as a speed merchant athlete, probably surpasses him, especially for punch arsenal. It is the competition and my perception of his heart and guts that put question marks on his p4p rating. It is very rare that fighters dominate live HOFers like he did with Toney and in hindsight the B-Hop win is a good win, yet there is the consideration that Hop grew to become a better fighter post that fight, a bit like Alvarez after facing Floyd. Many people would also say the way Toney trained fell right into Roy's hands. As I said, p4p, I could make the argument that nobody, maybe a handful of fighters at most, defeats Roy at his best from 160 - 175 lbs in a first fight against his unknown mercurial talents. A lot of that is based off of what I can deduce off film and my perception of his H2H ability. Whereas I want to put him Top 20, maybe higher of all times (personally, I could have him Top 5 depending on how I feel on the day) his ring record (more a consequence of his era unfortunately) doesn't allow me to dismiss SRR, Armstrong, Pep, Duran, Ali, Jofre, Charles and the other elite p4p fighters who have all shown excellent skills on film, but have the accomplishments to back it up as well. Roy's talents surpass his record - I almost feel guilty for thinking he potentially underachieved knowing that he held titles from middleweight to heavyweight. Insane.
I actually don't like watching Roy that much. I much more appreciate the fundamentally elegant fighters like Duran, Benitez, McCallum, Toney etc, but I just can't deny how he made even top class look like they were in slow motion. He was unique in that aspect imo. As for his resume I think it's better than most give him credit for. There were no better guys out there than the ones he did beat. Liles, Collins and DM would have been nice additions to his resume, but they were a level below Toney and Hopkins on the whole, even though can always argue about the exact conditions for each fight.
I agree with you on the technicians aspect. I prefer to study Louis over Ali. McCallum over Roy, B-Hop over Roy but when it comes to H2H, where talent is virtually the same, speed kills and absolute speed kills absolutely. Roy, Ali, PBF, Hearns, Leonard, Judah, Taylor, Camacho, Norris etc. all had insane speed but for various reasons all could be got to. The résumé thing is one of the areas where for me, unfortunately the modern fighter is at a severe disadvantage to fighters of yesterday. When there were 8 world champions, if you were a ranked contender, your record would have been decent by nature of having to really compete to get your shot. Roy was so good that he made good fighters look poorer than what they were. It's extremely rare that you get a dominant fighter who has competition in their weightclass that are equally as dominant/formidable and even moreso, when there's so many titles now that fighting the best of the best is a real political merry-go-round. The fact that fighters like Greb, Charles and Armstrong did more in a 5 year period than today's elite fighter is capable of doing in a career is one of my pet peeves with today's fight game. I wish that the likes of Floyd, Loma, B-Hop, Roy and Toney were around for the 15 round era. They deserved to show their skills in better eras.
Should be said, though, that Armstrong ducked some of his best contenders at WW lie Cocoa Kid and Burley. And Pac had had one of the most, perhaps the most, fantastic careers in boxing. Nobody can say that he took the easy route. The only thing missing was facing Floyd sooner (not saying it was only Pac's fault, but still). Roy was about four wins away from a perfect career. McClellan at MW, Liles and Collins at SMW, and DM at LHW. But people tend to focus so much pn the fights that didn't happen that they forget that he beat about 20 ranked contenders over three weight classes. To put that into perspective - has guys like Loma and Crawford more than five wins over ranked opp? Don't think any of them cracks ten in that regard.
H2h you can't really overrate him. Unless you manage to ko him he will give almost anyone in any weight serious problems and not many boxers can claim that. Hard to hit him let alone win rounds. His resume isn't even overrated by his fans so the thread title is kind of strange. He had an excellent resume but obviously not top 10 all time level. Say what you want about his opposition but it is still incredibly difficult to climb that many weight classes and consistently outclass ranked opponents. His ring iq and skill are actually underrated. Some people think he was just a freak athlete blessed with good reflexes who could punch but that is incredibly inaccurate. His timing, sense of distance, and accuracy are all things that can only be developed with lots of practice and an understanding of boxing.
Armstrong's record coupled with his activity allows me to forgive fighters that he didn't face. Fighters that Roy didn't face don't worry me that much to be fair. None of the names were as good as Toney was p4p or as good in hindsight as Hop proved himself to be. McClellan would have been interesting - G-Man could either have taken his head off or been absolutely embarassed and outboxed. Remember I said that I rate them based on ring record, skillset/ability on film and my assessment of their H2H prowess - Roy only lacks on ring record in comparison to your Greb, Charles, Ali, Langford etc. for top tier wins. Loma and Crawford lack on ring record comparatively but fare well when looking at skillset. I'm not too sure about H2H ability simply because outside of the Rigo fight where Rigo just didn't look like himself, I don't think Loma has been in with someone that I'm not expecting him to dominate. Honestly, despite seeming to be a braver fighter, taking on all challengers, I do asterisk Manny Pac. I suspect that he was a drugs cheat and obviously cannot prove it. I just think Floyd was always his superior. I do concede that he was a modern great, just not one of my fave fighters.
Pac or Floyd... That's a tough one. What speaks in Floyd's favour is that no one had his number. He never came out second to anyone he shared a ring with. I don't make too much of Pac losing to Floyd, because Floyd was the naturally bigger guy and it was also past both guys' prime, but Marquez was near identical to Pac in size and in the end had the better of their series. You could also plausible say that Morales won the one fight that really mattered in their trilogy. What speaks for Pac is his mind boggling achievement of going from being a lineal fw champion to absolutely beat the **** out of the future lineal MW champion. Something like that has never been done before and likely won't be again during my life time. Was he on PEDs? Quite possibly. But that can be said of anyone during the last 40-45 years. I'm actually going to take a dump at the altar and say that I think Duran was up to his eyeballs in PEDs when he beat Barkley. Personally, I prefer Pac because he just so ****ing bad ass. The way he beat Thurman for example. He just loves the battle. I just hope that love doesn't get him hurt in the end.
