Did Roy Jones duck anyone at SMW?: seperating fact from fiction

I don't believe he did. RJJ didn't need to duck anyone at 168 since, in my opinion, he a top 3 SMW all-time. LHW is another story though...

 

Good job. What about at 160 & 175 though? McClellan is a big question mark for one. I don't believe he ducked Michalczewski though. He didn't want to fight abroad after the Olympic robbery and that's understandable, especially in Germany. And why should he? He was the draw and had all the belts, nobody really even know Michalczewski was the lineal champion.

 

jones had like 5 fights at smw! toney and a bunch of cans! all this 'jones is the best smw ever' bollocks! you may aswell call him the best LHW ever too! **** it he beat ruiz lets call him the best HW ever!

 

Fair enough. I'm not very good with dates, I thought Benn v McClellan was '97 so I thought that gave Roy ample time to fight Gerald before that, but seeing as it was the start of '95, Jones had only really just found his feet with that Toney win a few months earlier.

 

Roy was offered close to 2 million to fight Nunn at some stage...I think late 97.

No duck there though...I think he was weighing up fights at heavy by that stage..Either way Nunn didnt do the job against Rocchigiani.

 

LOL you beat me to it!

 

I don't think Jones ducked anyone at supermiddle but it doesn't look good when you leave the most competitive division in boxing at that time to pick up titles against weaker opposition.

I think boxing politics and Jones uncompromising stance when negoiating fights meant these big fights never happened at super middle. Jones despite being as super gifted he was was not a big draw then, HBO were losing money on all his fights. The likes of Benn, Collins wanted a big payday to fight Jones and he simply didn't generate the kind of money that would have increased the purse to satisfy both parties.

Jones guided his career choices by risk/reward ratio which makes financial sense but doesn't always mean you will have the best legacy. You can blame Jones for that or you can blame HBO for paying $5 mill a fight when he didn't generate anywhere near enough interest from the fans to warrant such a payday.

I personally would have like Jones to have taken at least one risky fight where he wasn't always getting top money, even Calzaghe took a paycut to fight Lacy and that choice reaped Calzaghe financial and career sucess later on.

 

I think it was after he beat Toney that they guaranteed him $5 million per fight which is when he really stopped looking for the most competitive fights. His PPV number were around 100-150k mark which just shows that really only hardcore US fans knew who he was. HBO shot themselves it the foot when they guaranteed him $5 mill. Not suprisingly they have not since ever guaranteed another fighter a set purse level for each fight since.

Jones really only became a genuine boxing superstar after he beat Ruiz. If HBO had not done what they did I am pretty certain Jones would have taken more risks and fought Benn or Collins for big money.