Heavyweight Roy Jones, how far could he have gone.

I agree with this post. Roy would have to have carefully hand picked his opponents due to his clearly physically deteriorated state by the time he moved up to HW and also due to his shakey chin, and limited power.

However, I also agree with an earlier post that states Jones should have stayed at HW after Ruiz. He had much more financially to gain and in terms of legacy, by winning more fights at HW and defending his WBA belt, than by moving back down in weight to fight Tarver.

Jones made a bad career decision, but he probably made it because he doubted his chances at HW and decided to get out of the division at the first opportunity. Who knows how much trouble his HW sparring partners gave him?

 

Jones is a smart fighter. He knows himself, and he knows he wasn't cut out for the heavyweight divison.

 

Honestly..He could have faced Lewis..lost brutally and it still would have meant more to me then the 8 fights he had after he left the division.

Having a loss like that looks a lot better then getting knocked cold by someone like Glenn Johnson.

 

It was especially visible in Byrd's fight with Oquendo the same year Jones beat Ruiz. Byrd "outboxed" slow Oquendo so impressively, half the people thought Fres deserved the decision. Same way Byrd "impressed" everyone in his next fight with slow Golota, where he barely got a draw and more people thought Golota should have been given the nod, than a win for Byrd. Yet again Byrd was very "impressive" in his next fight with big and slow McCline too, barely getting a split decision. Then there was very close decision over Williamson, a beating he received from Klitschko and so on. Sure, Byrd was very "dangerous" for Roy at that point, without a doubt, same way he was for the rest of the heavyweight class. Add to this, he fought a one-handed Holyfield, and basically the last impressive fight Byrd had had taken place 1.5 years before Jones beat Ruiz, when Chris outpointed Tua.

Also, regarding Holyfield, it was Evander who refused to meet Jones, choosing to meet Toney instead, not vice versa.

 

That's the smoke and mirrors of it.