How good was Roy Jones?

top 10 H2H? Yeah for sure.

Top 10 All Time? Nah, sorry i can't put him in there, you could make an argument for Top 25 but no higher I don't think.


but my reasonable ranking would probably be between 30-40 when i actually get down to making a solid list.

 

fair and objective:good

 

I don't think Roy Jones was as skilled as everyone in this thread says he was. He was a tremendous athelete in his prime no doubt, but his legacy is slightly diminished with the recent losses to his record. Can't deny his greatness during his physical prime years. The body shot he landed to KO Virgil Hill was deadly and he did beat some quality opponents in the 90's with wins over Pazienza, Hopkins, James Toney, Lou Del Valle, Otis Grant and Montell Griffin.

My knocks against his career is that Mike McCallum was past it, and the Hopkins rematch should have happened years ago. Also he never stepped up to fight Dariusz Michalczewski or Graciano Rocchigiani who were two top European contenders when he was light-heavyweight champion. Like Ali, the bad thing Roy Jones left boxing was his style. I never liked fighters who shuck and jive with that stupid left hand down by the waist pose. Jones shouldn't have had to take some of the shots that Tarver, Johnson and Calzaghe landed if he was a more fundamentally sound fighter with his left hand up. Speed and reflexes diminish with age and Roy relied too heavy on physical talents to get him through fights without thinking that he'd have to better adjust his fighting style with age.

Roy Jones' ego told him that he was still faster than everyone else. His body obviously didn't agree with that.

 

H2H the guy is a nightmare though. I have not seen a fighter do the things roy could do in the ring. Once in a lifetime gifts. They can be seen even in his olympic robbery.

 

olympics are interesting as he was more conventional there then at any more in his pro career

 

160 --175 = H2H #1 IMO.

Heavyweight Version [Ruiz-Fight] = H2H #18.

 

that's pretty specific:tong

 

talent vs resume IMO

all the natural gifts in the world but didn't challenge himself enough and lack of technique left him nothing to fall back on when his athleticism left him

jones is possibly the biggest "what if" in modern boxing