Most Technically Perfect Boxers

Watch the replay again. After Jones threw his right, he pulled it back and kept next to his chin the rest of the time, it was only the angle at which Tarver's left came (due to Tarver stepping far forward and to the right) that allowed it to get past the guard.

He had his right hand up, next to his chin. That's called normal guarding position.

 

Just curious Senya, can you find some sort of freakish circumstance or out of the norm phenomena for every punch Roy ever happened to catch?

 

Joe Walcott.

But since Stonehands would decision him by jabbing the Barbados Demon silly, I'm going to have to go with our very own Stonehands89.

 

Glen Johnson fight, there was clearly an error, where diminished speed/reflexes didn't allow Jones to avoid the punch. But there Jones was clearly doing those things on purpose of trying to showboat his reflexes of making the opponent miss silly punches. The case of 2nd Tarver fight, it was not an error, it was a circumstance that happens only once in a while. Jones did everything by the book, Tarver did his part contrary to the book (throwing a blind punch with unexplained deep step forward and to the right), and won. Jones had punished many classic technicians with unorthodox moves too. Classic technique is good in classic situations, when it is facing unusual situations it might fail. Boxing is unpredictable sports, you can't pre-calculate all possibilities, and classic technique is a set of templates that usually work, nobody can guarantee 100% that they'll work.

 

I must say there's some much much better stuff in that lot.

 

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That could be kinda dangerous against a guy like Pedroza, Serrano or Marciano, who specialized in elbows.

 

The thing is it was a mid-range, not at close range, and so Roy would be able to step away or duck or lean away in case Tarver actually tried to elbow him. At close range Roy would keep both his arms in front of his upper body and head.

 

Sound technique is what let Hopkins, Toney, and McCallum, the only three notable names on Jones resume, go the distance with him. There is no question that Jones, in his prime, would have been the toughest comp for the likes of Robinson, Leonard, or Charles.

But the difference between the latter three and Hopkins, Toney, and McCallum is that Robinson, Leonard, and Charles also possessed much greater speed and athleticism than the former three. And although still not as gifted as Jones, it certainly narrowed the gap. They would have been able to touch him. Couple that with more efficient moves, technique and defense and the difference would have boiled down to toughness and smartness.

And I would have to say Jones has been one of the smartest ever as far as reading a fighter and following a strategy. But with these guys being able to touch him every now and then, how would he have fared defense-wise with those big gaping holes that could no longer be covered up by an overwhelming difference in speed?

I mean, an ancient McCallum was able to clip Jones although he wasn't able to follow up since Jones got out of harms way so fast.

Barrera hardly a speedster??? I beg to differ.

I guess you never heard of stepping back with the right foot while putting yourself into a hooking position (counter-clockwise)? Jones did that part but he did it SO sloppy and wrong... he pulled back and stood STRAIGHT UP... Jones got away with it for years because of the vast inferiroty in the overall level of his competition.

Yes... against the three classic boxers he met, he outsped and outsmarted them rather easily. And its not like Jones completely lacked classic technique... he just had some glaring holes... and when his age slowed him down a bit and narrowed the gap between him and his opponents' overall speed, then his LACK of complete classic boxing skills caught up to him.

To Jones' credit, he came into every fight fine-tuned like no one else. But otherwise, your statement is absurd because damn near all fighters have a bad day. Yet classic boxers rarely got KO'd.

So you are saying that if great fighters like Louis, Canto and Whitaker had fought with their hands down, jumped in and out of range, leaned back a lot, and leaped in with hooks, they woulda been even better?

A wild, amateurish swing KO'd the great Roy Jones!!! :nut

When exactly did anybody catch Jones while he was pulling straight back before Tarver did?

Oh, that's right... Tarver threw an accidental, one-in-a-million unorthodox punch that presumably might have even KO'd Sugar Ray Robinson.

Stop this childish nonsense and get with the program.

Oh, BTW... better start looking for a soft spot to land because you can't keep swinging on them nuts forever... they weren't ever that big to begin with.

 

Great post, can't say i agree with every single point but i sure enjoyed the read.

 

There were a lot more fighters who used classic skills against Roy, it never worked. Montell Griffin gave him his toughest fight up to 2003, yet you can hardly call Montell a classic technician, with all that posing, leaning away from punches and leaping forward with left hook and right hands from below.

The difference is, SRR wasn't very classic in his prime, if you saw his fights pre-St.Valentine, he's keeping his hands low a lot, and leaping with punches, in and out, and when being pressed on the ropes, is getting hit A LOT more often than RJJ was hit. Leonard was a dancer, at mid-range he got hit cleanly a lot more often than Roy, also look at how poorly he looked against speedy elusive Benitez, who also is hardly that classic a technician. Charles was a mix between a slugger and a boxer, his defense was clearly worse than Hopkins', Toney's and McCallum's, and he wasn't very fast with either his feet or his hands.

More efficient moves, technique and defense than who's? Charles looked rather poor defensively and with footwork, and his punches weren't very accurate or well-timed a lot of time. Robinson got hit a lot when staying on the ropes, and he wasn't very good at in-fighting, he's clearly worse than Roy as a counter-puncher. Leonard - he was better at footwork, that's the only thing he was better at.

He'd be able to "touch" them a lot more often than they could touch him, it's rather simple. All three had a lot of gaps in defense and made a lot of errors too, if you actually watched their fights.

Nobody is untouchable, even Willie Pep got hit with punches here and there. McCallum landed maybe one clean punch to Jones' five, and his punches didn't hurt Roy a little bit.

Watch all three Morales fights (Erik is faster with both hands and feet, and he's not the fastest fighter those weights have known), watch Barrera vs Junior Jones or Manny Pacquiao, he had average or slightly above average speed with his hands and feet.

What are you talking about? If Roy stepped back with his right foot, he'd be turning clockwise. And that's exactly what he shouldn't be doing against a southpaw, as he'd leave himself open for left cross to the head.

He outboxed Hopkins at all ranges, from long-range it was a no contest, at mid-range Roy hit and almost didn't get hit back, at close range he scored just as often as did Hopkins.
He out-counter-punched James Toney, who's one of the best counter-punchers of the 1990's.
He out-body-punched Mike McCallum, scoring with several punches to each Mike's punch.
He out-jabbed Virgil Hill, who had one of the best jabs of the 1990's.
He out-slicked Montell Griffin, who's as slick as they come.

He not only had all the moves from the book, but he showed them every now and then, many times during each bout. It's only that he combined them with unorthodox moves a lot of time, that people don't even notice his classic technique and only pay attention to his fancy moves.

He was primarily a counter-puncher. Most of these "glaring holes" were perfectly calculated feints to lure an opponent in, make him lead, and then either make them miss silly or punish them with a counter.

Such as? What was the accuracy of Glen Johnson's punches when Jones was hangng on the ropes? How many of his punches landed flush, instead of being blocked, slipped or rolled with, majorly reducing the effect of impact? What was the accuracy of Tarver's jab in all three fights? 10% or less? How many punches did Tarver land flush on the ropes, instead of hitting the block?

They were knocked down plenty of times, and they got hit a lot more often than Roy was in his prime and long after it.

You sure you watched enough of Whitaker to say he didn't do many of those things? Louis was often hit with counters when he stepped forward with his combo, often knocked down by such punches.

It wasn't a swing, it was a left cross, that travelled in almost straight trajectory.

Where did he pull back? Have you watched the replays and did you see how Jones threw his left hook counter, where his body twisted clockwise and rocked forward to try to put more power behind his left hook?

Robinson was hit and knocked down many times (while still at welterweight or light middleweight) by much simpler punches, often being badly hurt by them and barely surviving.

 

This is what amuses me, you run down fighters like Roldan, Schuler and many many others yet Griffin is "as slick as they come". What a load of utter shyte. Why is Griffin credible when others with better records are not? Because he fought your Roy, and anyone that fought Roy has to be built up in one way or another.

Gee wow, McCallum was about a decade and 20 pounds from his peak not to mention about a month off being 40. Duran (Vs Hearns) was way closer to his best than McCallum yet you take two totally opposing stances. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

:good

 

I find it annoying that you still can't bring yourself to acknowledge the technical errors that Jones made that cost him his consciousness. It doesn't mean he wasn't a supreme boxer, it means he was flawed like everyone else. If you take off that cape you put on him, you may appreciate Jones more for what he was instead of what you want him to be.

However, we do agree on one thing -that Jones spelled hell for all (of what I see as) the superior technicians (Hopkins, Toney) that he faced.

Unorthodoxy indeed throws wrenches in mechanics when combined with speed and power. Jones was a master at this and would have posed problems for anyone in 3 weight divisions. Anyway, I think that those last 2 sentences of yours were well put.

Bravo.

 

I saw that cape. It had a giant 'S' on it. I was suprised to find out that it didn't stand for "Superman", though. Who ever heard of "Stanozolol"?

 

You are not following the logic at all. If Jones was a supreme technician then why wouldn't you include Ali? That was the point.

Now explain why you believe that I am an Ali fanboy.