How do you rate Roy being the first fighter in 100 years to win titles from MW to HW? There's no doubt it's a great accomplishment, but there's a reason he chose to fight Ruiz for a trinket belt.
Insignificant . at least 100 fighters in history under 175 beat Ruiz that nigh t. Or any night. Toney did it fat as a walrus & on a couple weeks notice, with gravy for blood.
Don't see it as spectacular at all. Was more impressive with Spinks beating Larry Holmes imo. And Ruiz gave Jones way to much respect as well.
There were far greater achievements in boxing. For example Henry Armstrong, who won the worldchampionships at featherweight, lightweight and welterweight at a time, when there were no different belts or additional weight-divisions between. Okay, back to Jones. I think it`s still a great accomplishment, but afterwards at LHW, he wasn`t the same anymore, like Bob Foster after he bulked up to fight Ali.
I never saw it as much as much at all because of Ruiz as an opponent. Had he beaten a heavyweight contender like Ruiz it is not that big a deal. Ruiz could not punch and he fought Jones like he fought everyone else. It was an accomplishment but not really a big one.
It’s a nice feather in Roy’s cap. Ruiz is universally panned because of his style, but he went 1-1-1 with Holy, beat Tony Tucker and Rahman and Golota and Oquendo and Kirk Johnson and some other notable so there was something to him. His style was to negate you and he came nowhere near being able to do that with Roy. With the exception of Tua taking him out in one, he was durable and almost impossible to look good against.
It was a superb achievement. Sure it was the easy route and it was more of a paper title but it certainly doesn't harm his overall standing. Guy beat a top 6 heavyweight.
It was an achievement I believe other SMW’s could’ve achieved, another done by more LHW’s and not a tall task at all for CW’s or HW’s of a certain caliber.
Looks good on paper and was nicely done. But, since Jones Jr was 2-1 on to beat Ruiz, the eventual win didn't come as a surprise.
It was a decent victory for Roy but Hopkins,Griffin 2 and Toney were better in my opinion. Pretty much this Ruiz was a little better version of Scott Ledoux when he didn't have the clinching,elbows and politics on his side.
Jones moved up over time and did not go from middle to heavy in one leap. Nevertheless beating a top ten heavyweight is still a good accomplishment. I wish he would have gone for all the marbles and fought Lewis after Ruiz. He weighed 193lbs against Ruiz and to paraphrase Howard Cosell "had a body of tempered steel." Losing 20lbs and going back down to light-heavy was a big mistake. He would have been the underdog against Lewis but I believe he would have had a real chance of decisioning him. I know I'm in the minority with this opinion!