`Hitman` Hearns vs. Roy Jones at 160 ???

**** off back to the general forum.

 

The kinchen knockdown was at 168 not middle.
After the hagler fight hearns,to me,lost speed,mobility and that fluid defensive/offensive edge.
The hearns of the hagler fight was an awesome fighting machine,and as has been said,took many bombs from leonard and hagler before finally succumbing...

 

That is the fight I thought of when I read the title of this thread. That is also the fight that I thought of whenever Jones faced Tarver, and the reason that I thought Tarver would spell trouble for Jones. I picked Jones for all three of those fights, I'm not trying to say I viewed Tarver as his conqueror. I just viewed Tarver's style as difficult for Jones to solve, much the way Forrest was for Mosley.

I think that Jones would struggle against Hearns' jab and reach advantage. Hearns would time Jones' attempts to leap inside with his jab, keeping the fight at a distance and out of Jones' preferred range. I think Hearns would eventually land a crushing right hand that would put Jones out for the count.

 

I favour RJJ. The simple reason is that Hearn's is above his best weight and Jones below it. Since I don't think the fight would go the distance, this would favour Jones.

Both had great power and less than great chin, but this combination would spell greater trouble for the natural welterweight/light middleweight than for the natural super middleweight/light heavyweight if they met at 160.

 

Hearns would score a KO late in the fight.

 

I don't believe that the size would be a factor in this fight, Jones doesn't use his size to his advantage and he is at both height and reach disadvantages in this fight. Hearns also showed that he could take his power effectively up to the higher weight classes, even cruiser weight. Also, another thing that should be considered was that Jones was a small middleweight and had not reached his prime down there. He peaked at super middle.

 

People are make too big a deal of Hearn's height and reach advantages imo.

Jones was at larger height and reach disadvantages than he would face against Hearns for the bulk of his Lt Heavy career and it caused him absolutely no problems.I never saw him troubled by any larger fighters reach or jab especially at centre ring for his entire time at Lt Heavy.Tarver and Johnson both worked Roy over on the ropes but his legs were gone by then,and in this fight were talking about Roy at 160 were he was pure quicksilver.

I think a great fighter like Tommy can't be discounted but I reckon Jones was brilliant and better at 160 than Hearns was and I can't see him beating Roy in this one.

 

I think people are making too big of a deal of Jones's size, because how would that factor into this fight? He wasn't a pressure fighter, he didn't out muscle anyone and he didn't take risks against big punchers. You say that Jones wasn't troubled with anyone with a jab, since when did he fight Hearns or any as good of a pure technical boxer? I can say that Hearns was never troubled against anyone that didn't rough him up, and always got the better of outside exchanges.

 

Well, Hearns was KO'd by smaller guys who had less power than Jones. In his best win at 160, against Hopkins, he was already probably a natural SMW, since he was weight drained for that fight. This would affect his stamina, but I don' think stamina would be a great factor here.

Hearns's wasn't in his prime at 160, either. But as far as I know he didn't beat any opponent near the quality of Hopkins at that weight.

 

Hopkins and Toney were both pretty good technical fighters and they didn't cause Jones any problems although both lacked Hearns's physical advantages.

Ray Leonard fought more aggressively in their first fight with Hearns but it's not like he turned into Joe Frazier in order to rough Tommy up either.It was his speed of hand that got Hearns into trouble in both fights and I'd wager Roy was just as quick and hit much harder than Leonard plus he was much more unorthodox.

I think people over simplify things with the "Tommy is taller and hits hard so he wins" argument,and disregard the stylistic problems Roy also poses for Tommy which sells this intriguing match up short in my opinion.

 

Hopkins does come to mind here.

 

One more thing to consider. Jones is mainly vulnerable to head shots from Hearns, while Hearns is equally vulnerable to Jones's head and body shots. The punch that did Hearns in against Leonard was really a left to the ribs.

 

This is actually a tougher style for Jones than Hagler/Greb/Monzon because of the jab, reach and speed which Jones was slightly susceptable too. However this version of Jones is too strong and powerful at 160 where he looked unbeatable for the somewhat fragile Hearns I see him KO'ing Hearns in the mid rounds.

 

Jones was shot by the first tarver fight.the drastic weight loss...he seemed very tired sluggish like he was fighting in a drowsy state....we had never seen that before...the laying on ropes doing nothing...the lack of confidence.....yes rj jnr became shot overnight