I`ll always remember his first fight with RJJ as the first time someone gave RJJ real trouble. It was awesome to watch someone who was able to cope with Jones speed at dat time. I even had Jones behind by the time of the disqualification. This morning i saw his 2nd fight with Toney on youtube, and man he was skilled!!! I think he would have had a better career if he had fought at 154-160. He was too short for 168-175.
Never is the cliche timing beats speed more evident than in that fight. Jones could not get in a rhythm, because Griffin was timing his attacks and making him lead which was something Roy Jones didn't seen comfortable doing.
Griffin was an elite LHW, as the second Toney fight clearly shows. James was not drained against Griffin like was was vs Jones, yet Griffin won two (debateable but legit) decisions over him. His skills were P4P calibre. Griffin would have had a long reign at 175 if his prime didn't coincide with that of two of the best LHW's in history in Jones and Michalczewski. Griffin was short, but so was Dwight Qawi (asame height), who dominated at 190 lbs. Griffin's frame was built for Lightheavyweight, he couldn't have cut more than he did. Even as an amateur in his teenage years, he was weighing in at the 178 lbs limit in the amateurs (LHW), and beating good amateurs like John Ruiz and Jeremy Williams (future HW's) en route to a good showing at the Olympics.
Yeah i think Griffin used that height disparity as an advantage. I thought he beat Toney legitimately first time.
Good responses... If i`m not mistaken, his first fight with Jones was his last with Eddie Futch in his corner. No wonder why this guy was so good. He had one of the best trainers ever.
I agree with most of the points made about Griffin, but it should be noted that for all his good work in the first Jones fight, the tide had turned by the time of the DQ. Montell would have been knocked out.
Indeed. That said he gave Jones a **** load of trouble and was able to frustrate him enough into making a big mistake. Griffin is really underrated in hindsight.
Montell Griffin was a great fighter period. He was very short for a LHW but he had good reach. He gave Roy and Toney very tough fights, he was a highly skilled and tough little man. BUT Toney deserved the nod in both fights (altho they were very close) and, as Dinamita pointed out, Roy was getting the upper hand by the time of the DQ, Griffin would most probably have been stopped anyway.
Montell "Ice" Griffin is one of the most underrated fighters ever...he had very good skills and beat very good fighters...
Pure conjecture. :smoke Claims about this fight remind me of the post Vitali-Lennox message board fueds.
RJJ was knocking Montell around that round. It's extremely likely that RJJ would've knocked him out that round. That said it doesn't dismiss the tremendous work Griffin did troubling him and forcing Jones to lose his cool brilliantly.
I disagree. Griffin had his senses on him, so much so that he was mentally capable of deciding to take a knee. Sure, he was f*cked if the ref made him continue *AFTER* Roy landed those two illegal shots to his face; but without those punches, Griffin was not that badly hurt. And after an 8-count, I think he would have seen the end of that round easily enough (30 seconds left I believe). Also, RJJ had turned the tide, no question. But remember that fight went back and forth several times.
The fight had been going steadily more towards Roy in the last 2-3 rounds. I'm not convinced Roy would have knocked him out because he didn't have a particular vendetta against Griffin (yet), but there was nothing to indicate Griffin could turn the tide. Roy had figured out how to avoid the counterpunching and had just reached the point where you knew he was dominating the rest of it.
