Historical parallells for a Jones victory

Duran beating Moore or Barkley? Well, moore wasn´t thought of that highly but he was young and unbeaten. Barkley beat Hearns shortly before and it was 4 weights above Duran´s best weight and Duran was thought of beeing quite finished at age 38.

 

Seriously? Moore was thought extremely highly of before the Duran fight.

 

Bernard Hopkins turning the script the other day...Pavlik was,by a sizeable margin,the absolute favourite coming into the fight...He was supposed to murder Bernard...

Add in the fact that BHop was thought to be shot after the Calzaghe debacle...Then Hopkins flipped the script and made Kelly Pavlik look amatureish and clueless in there...

Jones must have taken heart from that perfomance.

 

cara vs arce

 

Hot prospect but not near P4P top3

 

Agreed, I'm sure Moore had only had about 13 fights. He can't be considered 'one of the world's best' as stated by the thread-starter. Barkley-Duran is a better answer, the best yet, but it still doesn't quite fit the mould.

 

Look at Jones's last 6 fights before Calzaghe, look at Hopkins's last 6 fights before Pavlik. Consider the quality of performance and the quality of opposition.

Your suggestion is not a legitimate answer here as Hopkins has been consistently achieving a high level of performance against the top level of opposition available - ie, clearly not shot. Roy Jones has not been doing so, nothing like it in fact.

 

Toney v Jirov?

Whitaker v De La Hoya would've been a great answer to this had Sweet Pea got the decision as many felt he should have, but his performance sets a historical precedence anyway IMO. After the Rivera fight, he was widely perceived to be in serious and irreversible decline, and what a display it was v Oscar, who I'm sure was top 5 p4p ranked at the time.

 

Thats a good 1, Ali was written of against Foreman but wasnt as far gone, Toney against Jirov is an impressive comeback of a fighter considered largely done, Holyfield was 2-2 coming in against Tyson

Archie Moore lost allot in his early 30s, losing 4 times in a year, including getting ko'd twice and was probably considered done before going on a massive winning streak

Jones has to elevate his game and adjust his game to being much less physically gifted that he once was. He also has to really really want it and work like a demon to get it

 

Calzaghe has showed signs of slipping and sometimes once you know some of the old powers are gone (like Hopkins) you can adjust and compensate. Jones has gone some way to doing that. Calzaghe may still believe he can do the same things he sued to. Maybe he can... If Joe is still up to it physically he should win easily.

If he has slipped and is not being honest with himself then he could come a cropper.

 

Hopkins vs Pavlik, not really long time history, but the analogy runs in the sense that it's an old vet beating the younger and somewhat smaller gun. Calzaghe is no spring chicken himself, though.

 

Well, the first that comes to mind is Leonard-Hagler.

Leonard had fought once in 5 years, looking rather poor in the process, then doesn't fight for 3 years, and in his first fight at the weight beats Hagler, who while faded himself, was still regarded as one of the absolute best P4P if not #1.

A rather obvious choice, surprised it had not been mentioned yet.

 

I can think of: Robinson over Fullmer and Basilio... Langford over Flowers... Hopkins over Pavlik... Foreman over Moorer... Holmes over Mercer... Hearns over Virgil Hill... All-around, I don't think any of those quite sets a precedent for this one, where the over-the-hill fighter has to beat a world's top three pound-for-pound fighter.