Although ruiz is a pot shotter and very statuesque its still a very impressive legendary and historic acheivement/performance.
Roy picked Ruiz for a reason, he was the easiest of the beltholders to beat. Moving up and winning a paper title against a mediocre beltholder is an achievement of a sort, but nowhere near winning the real championship against a good fighter.
Not his most impressive win, but it does have some value. Ruiz was able to beat Holyfield, who while all but shot by then was still Evander Holyfield, and Rahman and a few other decent heavyweights. The paper Heavyweight title is given to much value though, many fighters have moved up in similar amounts of weight and beaten far better fighters than Ruiz.
It was a good win, but all things considered (Ruiz being average, not being allowed to hug which is the only 'good' thing he does, the possible roiding fiasco) it's not one that defines Roy Jones for me. A win over Dariusz Michalczewski would have meant much more as far as I'm concerned.
One of the posters says plenty of boxers have move up in weight and fought an average fighter. I am paraphrasing, but name one fighter who went up in weight 25 plus pounds with no tune up. Mayweather worked his way up. Pacman worked his way up over a number of years. Just curious I dont think it has been accomplished.
Not a bad win by any means. If he'd stayed on and fought a shell of Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis (who was still great) then he would get more plaudits in my opinion.
Not exactly Spinks vs Holmes, but still an achievement worthy of note. He made Ruiz look clumsy and foolish...not that that was unexpected!
If we are limiting it to fighters that didn't work their way up, then there are older fighters like Joe Walcott and Sam Langford that regularly fought and beat much bigger men, most of whom were of a much higher quality than Ruiz. Bob Fitzsimmons won the true Heavyweight crown weighing only a little more than the middleweight limit. I don't see why it has to be fighters that didn't work their way up though. Roberto Duran beating Iran Barkley 25lbs above his best weight (and about 10 years past his prime) is far more impressive than Jones beating Ruiz. Same with Thomas Hearns beating Virgil Hill for the Lightheavyweight title. They both were 25lbs above their prime weight as Jones was, but they both fought more than one time at the weight unlike Jones.
Pretty much as dominant. It's been a while since I've seen it, Toney dropped Ruiz (really just an off balanced KD though), but Ruiz probably won about 2, maybe 3 more rounds against Toney than Jones. Ruiz was able to use his holding tactics more against Toney than against Jones as well.
Very impressive. The man is smaller than Calzaghe naturally, and he beat a heavyweight beltholder. The sheer size difference makes it impressive. Hell, I respect Toney for hanging with heavies nowadays.