Better overall skills: Roy Jones jr or Sugar Ray Leonard

Good idea for those who don't know how to defend themselves any other way.

 

Jones didn't do much of that, though.

Magnasaki has really put in som great posts here.

 

He did when it was needed, during his prime years.

 

Especially in the close range and when against the ropes for example Roy keeps his hands up.....

 

Jones didn't fight a Hearns or a Duran or a Benitez. Toney was good but he was always inconsistent and had weight troubles. Jones did not have a guy who really matched up with him like Leonard did. If Jones had a Hearns or Duran or Leonard to fight he would have had no choice but to fight.

Toney was great but at 168 he was not what those other guys were. Jones was greater in all aspects. I love James Toney, but think he lacks in the ATG category.

 

Yes. Understood clearly.

This defense however is a technique that one trainer told me is not very good to use unless you are a totally disciplined fighter to learning the style from early on in your career.

It's not half-assed.

It's more of a difficult counterpunching style with the attack consistently involving movement with the upperbody, head and feet to set up your punches. Some say it's associated with Latin style attacking in boxing. Julio Cesar Chavez Sr is one of the masters of this style.

The front shoulder protect defense involves a lot more head movement than what Jones did in his career. Not just by shucking and faking. The left elbow down, forearm and hand across the mid-section, right hand at the cheek is the traditional position. This allows you to throw the hooks inside to the body just from using the legs in rotation to generate power. The short-arm follows through the punch.

The danger in using your shoulder to block shots is making the mistake of being an easy target in the fight. You can't just stand there and take a lot of jabs and rights off that front shoulder. You're taxing your jab hand. You might not bring it up as easy in the later rounds to throw it, plus the fact that you lose the timing itself to reset and throw a proper one. Delahoya tried it against Hopkins and Sturm when he was moving up in weight and he looked awful after fighting in a more conventional style with his hands up. Jones almost perfected one of the most important aspects of this technique, which really showed how great he could have been if he wasn't such a showman.

The right hand lead is arguably the feature punch in this style when slipping and ducking to avoid the opponent's jab hand. Jones had a wicked right hand lead when he countered with it. Dynamite shot. Sometimes followed with a straight left and roll under finish with another right hook on top to the head. Also, the style is more dangerous against a southpaw opponent. You're even more wide open to the southpaw straight right jab and power left shots when your left hand is already down. Body shots are also key which Jones did an excellent job when he wanted to in fights.

The hybrid form of this defense is like what Ken Norton, George Foreman, Chuvalo and Frazier to some degree did. Somtimes Bowe and Holyfield too. Instead of of keeping the right hand at the cheek to protect the face, it comes across on top with the left arm across the body underneath. This, double arm cross defense.

My big problem and it always will be with Roy Jones Jr, is that he often let that left hand glove swing low and arrogantly across his front knee. Just too much showboating bothered me. It really did for a guy with so much talent.

 

Much closer than most people seem to recognize. Jones' skills are highly underrated and Leonard's somewhat overrated.

 

Definitely Leonard. Roy was awesome, but Leonard had awesome skills.

 

Leonard.

Once the reflexes went Jones was very beatable.

 

Depends how you measure it. In a purely boxing (rather than athletic) sense, I'd say Leonard was the marginally more skilled. Both of them were incredibly fast, but I'd say that Jones relied on his raw speed a bit more. Leonard could set up a lot of his best work through feints and subtle movements to create opportunities and draw errors. Jones could do this too, don't get me wrong - but I think he was just as liable to rely on speed being the determining factor in his fights, which allowed him to defy the boxing textbooks at times as he did.

But as I said, depends on how you measure it. Jones was certainly better defensively than Leonard (not that Ray's defence was poor by any means, but he did occasionally take some leather in his fights) and his reflexes were just off the charts.

 

Leonard is the greater skilled fighter. Jones is a reflex fighter.

 

Heart?! Ray went toe to toe withn Duran and knocked out the most fearsome hitter in welterweight history when stopping Hearns, when the hell did Jones show heart like that?!

 

Hearns out-jabbed Leonard, it wasn`t the jab that saved Ray in the first figt with Tommy it was Ray`s power.

 

At 38 Ali had Parkinsons.