Eubank Sr: 'Toney is the greatest middleweight of all-time!'

Toney don't get Knocked out!

 

I apologise if my original post to you came off as me being rude.

I do respect your opinion.

You've made some good points. But I can't envisage Roy getting picked apart at all.

Roy could fight when he needed to. He had a saying which was "You fight a boxer, and you box a fighter"

Roy was very smart both inside and outside of the ring.

In my honest opinion, there's no way Roy would have engaged him in a boxing match. Like you've mentioned, Tommy was a great boxer. He was great technically, he was fast, and his reach was bigger than Roy's. He was also taller at 6'1/6'2.

Ray found out in their great fight in 1981, that it was futile trying to outbox Tommy. But he didn't just get lucky and end up catching Tommy, he completely changed his tactics mid fight. After a famous grilling by Angelo Dundee, he then went out and fought him toe to toe instead of boxing him. And those were the tactics that Marvin and Barkley employed too. Tommy had great advantages, but he also possessed a few weaknesses. Which were: he could be tagged if you fought him aggressively, and like Roy, his chin wasn't great.

Again, in my opinion, Roy wouldn't have boxed with him, he'd have fought him instead. Now in my opinion, Roy was just as skilled as Ray, he was just as fast, but he was naturally bigger, stronger, and he was more powerful. Roy had genuine one punch knockout power in either hand.

Again, I respect your opinion. If you think Tommy would have beaten Roy, then that's fair enough. But I don't see how Roy wouldn't have been able to have done to Tommy what Ray and Marvin did to him. If they could take him out, then Roy certainly could have done.

 

He doesn't have the record at middleweight like Robinson, Hagler, Hopkins, or Monzon but he did fight from middleweight up to heavyweight which was a very rare accomplishment. I know that Mickey Walker did this too, but I can't think of many others. In all likelihood, Toney should have been one of the all time great light heavyweights, but either lack of self-control (overeating) or a tremendous ambition led to him becoming a top 10 heavyweight of his era.

People rain praises down on Hopkins for starving himself to fight smaller guys for a decade and establish a dominant reign at middleweight. Hopkins gets regularly cited as one of the greatest middleweights because after that he moved all the way up to light heavyweight. Why shouldn't James Toney get even more credit for just passing through middleweight and spending a large chunk of his career in a much higher weight class fighting much bigger opponents?

I can see what Eubank is pointing at there.

 

Even though overall I like Roy Jones as the more impressive boxer, from 154-160 I see Hearns being a lot more comfortable. Roy could only make 154 when he was a kid, whereas Hearns made his bones there from 24-28. The last time Jones made 154 he'd just turned 22 and hadn't grown into the boogieman he would become. A young inexperienced Jones would have his hands full with the more experienced Hearns. But from 168-175 I think he just blows Hearns away.

 

Great post.

:good

 

:good

Good points.

I agree, he'd certainly have had his hands full, no doubt.

I can envisage Tommy beating him.

I've no issue with anyone saying that they think Tommy could/would have beaten Roy.

The issue I have, is when someone tells me that Roy COULDN'T have beaten Tommy.

I like Roy's chances at MW, especially the mature version who fought Thomas Tate at 25, just before he moved up to SMW to fight Toney in 1994.

 

Nobody could outbox Hearns, even at LHW.