Walcott at his best was something special but at the same time so was Jones. Jones only had one fight at HW against John Ruiz who wasn’t the best champ but had a massive size advantage. I would favor Walcott because he was more proven at HW.
Jones was really a super middleweight, and probably the best one ever. He was a smallish light-heavyweight and managed to eat/bulk his way up to 193lb for one fight against a handpicked opponent. Jones could never take the punch off a powerful 175lber let alone a big cruiserweight. Walcott was a full fledged ripped 195lb with one punch knockout power, incredible footwork/movement/feints, fantastic ability to set traps, and had a very unorthodox style. Jones unmatched handspeed/reflexes/athleticsm always keeps him in a fight vs anyone but this is a bad matchup for jones.
Even more than Jones chin, the big problem is that when Jones fought at heavyweight he was already past his prime. So, a guy who is not really a heavyweight and is past his prime going up against a prime Walcott is going to have a very hard time winning. I'll go with Walcott by decision.
Considering some of the in-ring weights that modern supermiddles come in at, maybe it would be more accurate to say Jones was an old fashioned lightheavyweight. https://basementgymboxing.blogspot.com/2014/01/fight-night-boxing-weights-list-of.html?m=1 Incidentally, some of these weight gaps approach Burley's against that lightheavyweight contender.
Yeah, on the money, Jones was peeled to the bone, dried out and forced down. In the old era he’d have been a big guy.
Well...Not quite. I see in the hyperlink offered that the % variation of rehydration is significant. Some add ~ 5%, some up to over 10%. I think Jones used to add near 15 lbs. when a SMW? So if you do the math he was still smaller than JJW. Likely the muscle he had was comparable, at least close, but Jones had a smaller bone structure. And given his moving up to HW & + test, we do not know if-at least over SMW-he used PEDs often to get to that size.
