How come RJJ never recovered...

It's more than a cerebral effect, it's physiological. Once concussed all succeeding concussions come easier; hence a brutal knockout lowering punch resistance.

 

And that's a excellent point also, going all the way up to heavy, then going back down I'm sure didn't do his physicality any favors.....

 

Tarver took Roy's soul. He didn't have the confidence and hesitated more. Because of his style that depended heavily on reflexes, he was done.

 

Sometimes you have to know when to quit, like I did halfway through your post.

Simple fact is Roy was an insecure, delusional sociopath that built himself up to be invincible and then couldn't deal with the truth when he found out different.

 

Yes he was, but was he fundementaly sound or his atheletic gifts so great they were hard almost impossible to overcome. Think about some of the things Roy was able to do in the ring when he was at the top of his game. The leaping left hooks from outside. Throwing upercuts from outside. Lead rights well outside what would be the punching range for most fighters. Think about the fights you have seen pro or amateur and how many fighters that were able to get away with that during a entire fight. As many fights as I've seen only two were able to get away with that Ali and Jones jr. So again my opinion and maybe mine alone Roy was a God given fantastic ATHLETE that just so happened to box. But he wasn't a great boxer. Mayweather is a great boxer, though I'm definitely not a fan of his, but the reason he still so successful because he's able to fall back on being well schooled.Same with B. Hopkins, J.Toney, and a few others in today's game.

 

Roy was exposed pure and simple. Suddenly, all the nonsense about him being "the best 200 pounder ever" stopped. We learned what would really happen if one of the great ones connected, and the truly ATG have a way of connecting when their title is on the line. That's what happens when you listen to flavor of the month guys like Max Kellerman.

 

Would you consider Archie Moore the great exception to that rule then? The Ole Mongoose was a deadly HW, but seemed to be at a different level entirely when dropping back down to 175 to defend the LHW Title. In Durelle I, he came back from the beating he couldn't come back from against Marciano. In Durelle II, he made weight over two weeks before the rematch, was not weight drained, and never looked better in title competition.

Looking at Archie, he was obviously gaining and shedding body fat to successfully shift between HW and LHW though, while Jones was shedding lean body mass to move back down.

Moore shifted between HW and LHW for over a dozen years until his LHW Title finale in the Rinaldi rematch, a dominant UD win after Guilio took their first ten round UD rather cleanly at HW. Rinaldi I & II are pretty direct evidence to me that he was always best below 175. Archie weighed 206 for his comeback after the Patterson loss for Marciano's vacated title, and he came in at 196 for Nino Valdes a month before destroying Bobo Olson in his next bout at 174 in defense of the LHW Title in mid 1955.

 

Yeah, that was a characteristic stream-of-consciousness ramble on my part.

I type a lot of lengthy TL;DR type posts simply to get my mind engaged for the day, distract myself from currently crippling C5 misalignment induced headaches and so forth.

You see a long one like that with my user name at the top, odds are I've typed it for some such reason, and you can just skip it entirely. (What's actually more disturbing to me is that there are some other posters who claim they sometimes read every word I submit twice, despite my ongoing efforts to lower expectations.)

 

He was suddenly exposed at 35, after 50 fights, across 5 weight divisions?

 

Calzaghe IS a great fighter by the way.

 

No blueprint.

 

Fighters are like heavy metal bands: they don't know when to quit. They stick around too long and make fools of themselves. I just hope Roy doesn't get hurt this weekend.

 

hed also plateaued in his career, winning titles from LMW to HW, almost unprecedented, probably had a mental effect where he felt he had nothing to prove anymore.

 

There is some truth to this. Nothing at 175 was going to eclipse what he did against Ruiz in his mind. That and I think he lost his legs coming back down.