Leonard wouldn`t have beaten a prime Floyd the way Ray was fighting after the Hagler fight, he ws slipping drastically.
NBC took Jones over to London to sit ringside for the famous Benn-Watson fight, when Benn was considered an invincible destroyer and expected to blow Watson out of the ring to become WBC/WBA #1 contender. They saw Jones as the great American hope figure who could fight/maybe beat Benn for big bucks by 1990 and start a great rivalry. (Nunn, Eubank, Lennox and Bruno were also ringside)
You've stated an opinion. Michalczewski chose to vacate the WBA and IBF belts because he wasn't willing to fight their mandatories. Hill shouldn't have been champion when Michalczewski beat him anyway because Del Valle was robbed against Hill. Eubank has admitted he would only face Jones Jr if he was his mandatory and he couldn't be mandatory because both men were beltholders. Don King had the rest of the SMW champions in Liles and Benn and said he wasn't putting any of his opponents in with Jones unless Jones sighned a 10 fight promotional deal with King. All of these opponents, Michalczewski, Benn, Lilles were offered a career high 8m by HBO to face Jones and none of them took it.
Floyd isn't prime at 154lbs, Leonard against Hagler is nearer to prime than Floyd was. Floyd's also way too small at the weight. You're putting him in with all time great middleweight and a slightly past prime great welterweight, when really he's a natural 140lber Weight classes for a reason. Floyd can outhustle 1 dimensional guys at 154 but not ATG who have pounds on him
You said the belts were 'paper', they're made of leather and sactioned by the relevant bodies to ensure the best face the best. Calling them paper was an opinionated dig because you believe lineage is the most important thing. You seem only interested in trolling in this thread rather than having any intelligent discussion
No it's no dig. Michalczewski had all of the belts, they were stripped by organisations, he didn't lose them in the ring. The term paper champ is a commonly used term in boxing for exactly this reason. Trolling is not holding the position that the P4P number 1 fighter would not lose to a green fighter with no ranked victories to his name.
He didn't face his mandatories, hence he lost his belts. He chose to keep the WBO, which allowed for lower standard of opposition, while proclaiming himself a world champion. Green fighters beat great champions from a very young age or very early in their career, Lomachenko won his first title in his third fight. Jones Jr was every bit as good an amateur as Lomachenko. Benitez was a green 17 year old when he first won a world title. Now your position surely is 1993 Jones beats Mayweather at 160 I assume? So when exactly was Jones Jr capable of beating Mayweather is the area of disagreement. My contention is in 1989 Jones Jr was nearly as good as he was in 1993, you disagree and think he was nowhere near. Yet we know Jones Jr outboxed Ray Leonard and Lindel Holmes in sparring circa 88-89. Jones beat his first world champion in January 1992 when he knocked out ex champ Vaca in a single round. He won a shut out decision against future WBA champion Jorge Castro 6 months later
No, this isn't the case at all and you should really look at what happened. He lost his WBA belt because he had a WBO belt. IBF required him fight 30 days after beating Hill. The reasons he lost his belts are not as you describe. Lomachenko also lost to Salido in his second fight. Benitez had had 25 fights before facing Cervantes. Jones at MW yeah, I see him beating Floyd definitely. But as a LMW with no experience of fighting ranked opposition, against a LMW P4P number 1 in Mayweather, I don't see it at all.
There's no way Liles would've been offered $8M to fight Jones when he was only making $250,000 for fights. He was a no-name and would need shooting to turn it down. Total fabrication. Michalczewski also, not in a million years was offered that.
