Great boxers that could have achieved more.

Zsolt Erdei won the WBO lhw title in 2004 in Germany, by outpointing a guy Jones had already beaten 3 years earlier.

At this time, Jones had just become WBA heavyweight champion, and was atop the boxing world.

Was he seriously expected to look down from the top of the p4p charts, and say "I want to fight that Hungarian guy who just outpointed Julio Cesar Gonzalez in Germany"??? Jones probably didn't even know this had happened.

Now, rather than fight for Erdei's new WBO belt, Jones elected instead to face the division's number 1 fighter, Antonio Tarver, for both the WBC and WBA Super belts.

After a close fight, the pressure mounted for a high-profile rematch, and Jones granted Tarver it. He was stopped.

He then was offered a crack at the IBF title in his homeland against Glen Johnson. He was stopped.

He was then offered a chance at redemption against Tarver. He jumped at the chance, and lost. Jones was then relegated to building his name and credibility back up against relative nobodies.


In this time-frame, Zsolt Erdei was defending his lone WBO belt in Germany against whatever mandatories the WBO could dredge up from Europe and elsewhere.


At exactly what point was Roy Jones supposed to forget what was going on in his career, and head over to a small hall in Germany to fight a Hungarian for the WBOgus championship of Eastern Europe?


Honestly man, to me the idea is as silly as Mayweather fighting Hatton The Younger.

 

Why would it not matter if you win or lose? And how can you have taken that from what I said?

Silly.

I said I didn't expect Floyd to win every single one of those fights, but that's not the same as saying if he lost them all I'd still rate him higher, is it?

SRL lost to Duran only out of Benitez, Duran, Hearns and Hagler. Would you rate him higher if he had never fought any of them, but retired with a zero after beating Kalule, Lalonde, etc?

Me neither.

If Floyd had dropped a fight or even two, but still cleaned out those divisions of all of those top fighters, I'd rate him higher than I do now, where he has a zero but fought Sharmba Mitchell, Carlos Baldomir and a welterweight Juan Manuel Marquez instead.

 

Prince Naseem Hamed

 

Now this list I am about to make should in no way be taken negatively. These are, imo, supremely talented fighters who, given better opportunities, could have gone down as true greats.

Jones, could have fought dariusz, benn and retired once he beat tarver.

Calzaghe, could have moved up sooner when jones, tarver, johnson, woods and hopkins were battling it out. Then perhaps finish his career with a win over dawson.

Naz could have kept his motivation and carried on longer fighting the likes of em, jmm and pac.

Floyd, nothing against what he has done but he could also have done more. Has a chance to still do this.

Pac, like floyd, is wasting his talent in non competitive fights atm, he has the chance to do more however.

Vitali, I think he was a tremendous talent who was robbed of his best years which means he will never have lived up to his full potential.

And then there is the enigma that is tyson. Whilst I feel holyfield always had his number, there where fights he could have had, had he not been imprisoned. Foreman, moorer, bowe etc.

As I say these are awesome talents who given the opportunity could have gone on to do something special, even more so than they did do.

 

Have you read the quote yourself in the mentioned newspaper? If so, you can assume that it is correct. Or did you first read the quote on an Internet message board or community? If so, you can assume that it is most probably made up and never was said or published in the first place. In interviews Calzaghe always does his best to defend his career. Claiming that he openly has admitted that he is a greedy ducker sounds like wishfull thinking from haters/dislikers. :think

 

well I think you are the exception, that most people would rate Floyd lower if he fought Tszyu, Williams, Mosley, Margarito, Cotto and went 3-2 against those guys.

I also don't see how he could clean out the divisions if he lost 2 out of 5 fights. You have to win all the fights to clean out the division.

 

Starting to turn into a who ducked who thread.

In response to the actual question of a great boxer who could have achieved more ... I think Tszyu is a perfect example.

Often criticized for his resume, he struggled to land a superfight with a DLH, mosely, Mayweather, etc that would have removed the question mark that some people place on his career. Missing a rematch against Phillips and losing his final fight against Hatton also left him tagged with the perception he struggled with pressure fighters.

The fight he nearly landed at 147 was Corey Spinks. Had Tszyu got and won that fight he would be viewed differently.

 

So, you're saying fresh off of winning the vacant wbo title off of a compromised Eubank, and defending against either Branko Sobot, Juan Ferreyra, and possibly Robin Reid and Rick Thornberry, Calzaghe was calling out Roy Jones Jr.

Jones who, being the WBC, WBO and possibly IBF LHW champ, was ducking the wbo smw title holder? Without getting into a Calzaghe type debate, does that make sense to you? Or do you think that maybe Calzaghe was just a non-entity at the time.

WHy would he be mocking Jones at that point? He had already said other things that would lead you to believe he wasn't chasing Jones at that time.

 

<----------- :d

 

Yeah, the argument I had was not "Arrg, Jones did a shitty bad naughty" but rather that it's not nearly Mayweather VS Matthew Hatton. Not nearly. You know this. Come on. ...Coooome on, Pop. You get that. Different classes of fighter in different situations by far. I'm not arguing about who should've done what but you can't compare MatHat with Erdei as you did and not get scoffed at a bit. Jones fighting an undefeated titlist and linear champion in his own division and Mayweather fighting a guy that...Well, you know. You know, dammit. A more accurate thing to say would be "blaming Mayweather if he'd never bothered with Baldomir" but that wouldn't quite do either. :blurp

 

My friends, my friends............can we not just agree that none of this matters in the grand scheme. Can we not just sit down over a tall, tall glass of Raahhhhhr (Russian Space Blue) and remind ourselves that SNV should be brought into this thread (if only to shame all others mentioned) as an anti- example?

 

What if he went 4-1? IMO, he would still be ranked higher then, especially if the loss was avenged for a 5-1. You guys need to stop zero-worshipping, it's really not the be all and end all. It certainly wasn't when the ****ing GOAT was around!

 

I'm not saying the situations were identical, what I am saying is that expecting Jones to break out of the Ruiz/Tarver/Johnson title cycle to go to Germany hunting Hungarians is every bit as outlandish as expecting Mayweather to fight someone light years below his level. I'm not comparing MattHatt to Erdei, but the scenarios are as unlikely as each other. No?

 

I very much doubt someone would just make it up, and type 'Daily Mirror' under it. I'll do a bit of google-ing, see if a record of it is available.

 

I don't zero-worship at all, I'm talking about consensus. 4-1 and then 5-1 with a rematch is very different than 3-2.


My opinion is that Floyd has managed his career extremely well, and that his perceived ability as it is today is higher than it would be if he had been made to put his ability on the line and actually prove it in the ring.


For me a great boxer who could have acheived more is Marquez. A guy who actually fought the big challenges but maybe not the smartest ones at all times

or Meldrick Taylor, who was ruined by the Chavez fight