One thing about Roy's legacy...

Roy's deterioration, and subsequent losses, do affect his standing H2H against the best of the past 100 years - it has to.

Roy's defence was his reflexes and his ability to sense incoming fire. His actual boxing fundamentals were poor, but with his speed, agility and power, he could make wrong right.

Now those things have gone, he's so technically flawed that he's going to keep losing to anyone who's actually any good.

 

Difference is that Sugar Ray Leonard had great wins in his prime. Roy lacks great wins, and now he was talking about fighting Hopkins, a guy he never talked about rematching, or at least he didn't seem to want to fight him again. I think these fights do affect Roy's legacy a little-not bigtime, but a little because it shows that when he lost his skills a little he went down easily enough.

 

Indeed it is a bit esoteric I guess but i doubt anyone would argue ( especially now ) that Roy was a great athlete , who was fortunate enough to be born with spectacular reflexes and was able to use them to employ a very unique style. However it could be said he wasted a lot of his peak years and that when his reflexes began to fail he didnt have any great skills to replace them with ( As Ali did ).

That seems fair to me !

 

And I agree 100%.

But I've somehow come across as if I was comparing Jones to Ali, or Leonard. That's wasn't my intention. My intention was to compare the "situations", not the resumes.

My point was simply to show that similar to that for Ali (I never actually used Leonard myself), Jones losing at 41 doesn't really mean much.

 

Not a lot , really , Like Man on the Spot says a 36 year old Green isnt much above gatekeeper but then Green could always bang.

Had Roy been utterly outboxed over 12 by Green I think that would be even worse.

If an old Roy is going to lose to Green it should be by KO ( that sounds daft but you know what I mean )

You have to think though that Roy will look back at how good he once was and think maybe I should have pushed a little harder to truly clear out my division and leave no argument ( which he probably could have done back then !)

 

Also agree, very strongly.

Roy is one of my all time favourite fighters, no doubt. But I am also realistic about where he stands all time (don't get me wrong, I probably rate him higher than most boxing historians do, and probably also higher than you).

But oh how I wish I could substitute a few names in Roy's resume with fights that were realistic at the time (and fights most here would tip to win).

 

Hes not one of my heroes thats true but kinda like Tyson its hard to argue that at his absolute best anyone in history from Middle probably all the way upto Heavy would at very least have their hands full with him , and there are precious few fighters that can be said about.

 

I agree.

The boxing experts used to compare him to Sugar Ray Robinson and the likes. His hand speed and reflexes were unbelievable, and he was powerful and graceful. Unfortunately when he moved up to the HW and then back down to light HW he drained himself really bad and got caught. To me, his legacy is intact.