What if Roy Jones Jr. stayed on at heavyweight and defended his title....

It’s an easy equation:

RJJ faced a mandatory against Vitali Klitschko in his first defense. No way he wins.

The next two contenders were Hasim Rahman and David Tua. I might give Roy a small chance at beating Rahman (but I’d put my money on Hasim) but he wouldn’t beat Tua.

So should Vitali for some reason not take the fight (he didn’t accept a bout against Rahman for the interim title, which would have led to the interim tag being removed when Roy moved back down and vacated), I don’t expect RJJ would have lasted even one defense against either Rahman or Tua.

 

He gets knocked out.Roy is no heavweight

 

Would've being an ex heavyweight champ within a year. Can we imagine him facing Tua or even a Faded Lennox?!!
He knew it that's why he dropped back down.

 

I'd give Roy a better chance of beating Tua than Rahman.

 

He loses, Ruiz was hand picked.

 

As great as Roy was he knew that Ruiz was the perfect opponent for him. He knew that Ruiz didn't have the speed to compete with him and as long the ref wouldn't allow Ruiz to rough him up in the clinches he would cruise to a decision.

His heavyweight title win was a lot different from Spinks beating Holmes or even Moorer beating Holyfield. Even though Holmes and Holyfield were getting older, they were still very dangerous and complete fighters.

With all that said, I still give Roy credit for beating Ruiz. Ruiz was not a lot of fun to watch but he was a tough guy that is somewhat underrated because of his style.

 

Ruiz under those circumstances was a tailor made opponent for Jones if there ever was one. Without the Quiet Man being able to fall back on smothering his foe in the clinch, Jones was free to fight his own fight against him. It's still a remarkable win, but it absolutely does not extrapolate to Jones being able to stand up against the legit knockout punchers and the superheavies of the division. Vitali crushes him. Tua and Rahman are simply not worth the risk to Jones, when either can dust him with one good punch.

Now, some fights that actually could have been interesting would have been a matchup with Byrd or a HW showdown against Toney. If not those, then RJJ would have been better served going down to Cruiser instead of draining himself back to LHW.

 

Jones should of fought Tyson at the time. It would of been a huge payday, a winnable fight, and if he got KOd i dont think people would of held it against him much. A Toney vs Jones fight at heavyweight would of been welcolmed as well. Maybe Jones avoids Tua for 12 rounds and dances to a decision but tht is a dangerous, dangerous fight for Jones. Vitali is too big, and even though i would love to see it, i dont think Jones makes it out of that fight without being KOd.

Jones could of beaten Rahman, but once again he always be in danger of being KOd.

No matter what, Jones was slowing down and losing his athletic freak gifts at this point as well so he may have been beaten by any of these guys in his next outing.

 

Rahman would have ko'd RJJ

 

Jones would have been brutally KOed. Though, I will say he might have been able to beat Byrd and unify the WBA and IBF titles. I don't think he would have been able to even beat Lamon Brewster to get the WBO belt for example. Jones list of opponents at Heavyweight was very small which is why we didn't even see him take on Byrd for example. The risk was just too big for Reluctant Roy.

 

After Roy Jones defeated Ruiz, he made attempts to defend against several fighters.

First, Roy tried to make a unification with Corrie Sanders, who had just knocked out Wlad to win the WBO belt. Vitali was the WBA #1 contender, but he decided to fight a WBC eliminator with Kirk Johnson. So Vitali was removed from their ratings (makes no sense, but he was). Tua was the WBA's #2 contender (and also Corrie's WBO #1 contender), but then the WBA decided to hold an eliminator between Tua and Rahman before either fought for the belt. This seemed to the clear the way for a Jones-Sanders unification.

But the WBO insisted Sanders defend against his new mandatory, Lamon Brewster (who replaced Tua when Tua opted to fight Rahman). Sanders said he didn't want to lose his belt, so he decided to keep the belt and fight Brewster.

https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2003/08/08/Jones-to-fight-Corrie-Sanders/97291060378671/

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/boxing-tuas-team-eye-jones-or-sanders/GXWSW3C23YEOB5UUK5C7AIBLOU/

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/boxing-tua-to-fight-rahman-again/BLHCVSUDZML2AMTGGWM37TSDKI/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/3148387.stm

Funny thing is, Sanders ended up dropping the WBO belt and fought Vitali for the vacant WBC title, which all but ended Corrie's career as a top heavyweight.

Jones only wanted to fight Sanders if it was a unification. So Corrie didn't have the option of dropping his belt to fight Jones. Would've been interesting if it happened. Obviously, Jones saw Sanders as an easy fight, like he did Ruiz.

Then Jones tried to defend against Holyfield. But they couldn't come to terms with money and options and things. At the same time, James Toney was trying to make a fight with Bernard Hopkins at a catchweight between crusier and middle. But Bernard wanted too much money.

So Evander and Toney decided to fight each other instead.

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2003/jul/24/holyfield-toney-get-together-by-default/

So, had the stars been aligned, or the WBO hadn't have been jerks, it's likely we'd have seen Roy Jones vs. Corrie Sanders or Roy Jones vs. Evander Holyfield as Roy's first title defense.

Had the same Holyfield who fought Toney showed up, Jones probably wins that.

As it was, Jones returned to light heavyweight.

Just think, if Ruiz hadn't lost to Jones and Wlad hadn't lost to Sanders, we'd have gotten Ruiz-Tua II for the WBA belt, Wlad-Tua for the WBO belt, and likely Toney-Hopkins in a non-title catchweight fight.

 

Going back down to light heavy accelerated Jones' demise. I wish he would have kept fighting at cruiser or heavyweight. Of course Jones would have been in significant jeopardy staying at heavyweight but I think he would have done better than many believe and would have gotten some epic paydays.

 

Jones seems to love title belts and winning them in multiple weight classss. Maybe he should of picked off one of the Cruiserweight title holders instead of going back to 175. Maybe it would of saved him some years of trying to win a cruiserweight belt in his advanced age.

 

He'd have been brutally knocked out,,uh, sort of like he was later against smaller men.