Poll: Is Roy Jones a top 10 all time great lighheavyweight?

I'd suggest "Just You n' Me". Or "Beginnings" or "If You Leave Me Now". I'm a fan. Please don't tell anyone. Reputation, yah know?

Puma, good stuff.

 

Hahaha, man i love Chicago

 

me too:good

but on the topic i think ruiz deserves more credit then he gets, his fights imo are very hard to watch but with what he does but he did beat holyfeild, rahman, oquendo, golota, kirk johnson, mcline and some would think valuev.

what amazed me was how after jones dropped down, ruiz promptly regained the world title and made two more title defenses and controversaly lost it to valuev.

something that made roy jones great to me is the statistic that doesnt always show in a boxer's record.... how a fighters dictates a fight. roy jones absolutely dominated good-very good fighters sometimes without them winning a single round.

 

Middleweight maybe super middleweight dominating everyone in the division the way he did, absolutely yes. I hate to see him fighting now. Guys with his kind of speed can never have an extended career once they lose a step, I dont get why he doesnt understand it, hes a smart guy.

 

Yep.

Looking at their best opponents just at LHW, Conn's best was Bettina and Lesnevich, who were basically as good as Roy's best, which were Hill and Tarver. Moreover, Conn was 4-0 against them, while Roy was only 2-2 against those two guys.

If you look at their standout wins over the whole course of their careers, you end up with this:

Roy:
Hill
Tarver (once in 3 fights)
Toney
Hopkins
Ruiz

After that, it gets very murky.
Maybe Reggie Johnson? Or even McCallum?

By contrast, Conn has (off the top of my head):
Lesnevich (twice)
Bettina (twice)
Zale
Apostoli (twice)
Bob Pastor
Gus Dorazio
Solly Kreiger (twice)
Teddy Yarosz (twice)
Young Corbett III
Babe Risko
Vince Dundee
Fritzie Zivic
Lee Savold
...among others.

No need to even take into account his "near win" over Louis.

In fact, Conn has one of the best resumes in history IMO. Personally, I rate him as the best supermiddleweight-size fighter that ever lived.

I agree that his legacy at LHW is hurt by the years he spent in forced inactivity during the war, and perhaps keeps him from entering the top 5, but IMO it's not enough to remove him outright from the top 10, or move him down below wherever Roy is ranked.

 

Came too late for the poll, anyways yes he is.

 

I believe that was still technically considered a middleweight fight, as both guys were weighing just a pound or two over the limit.


Incidentally, the majority of his losses happened all the way down around lightweight.

 

True. Its like he spent all his money during his real career, and know he says hell take a few fights when or lose and make his retirement fund.

HMM sounds like the soon to be Floyd Mayweather Jr story...

 

He's on the bubble, in my opinion.

Jones has the numbers: 12 defences over a seven year title reign, and in terms of the dominance that he exhibited over the vast majority of his opponents, and sheer talentm he probably has that working in his favor, too.

And, to be honest, his competition wasn't that bad at the weight:

* Reggie Johnson (two division titleholder, shut out over 12 rounds)
* Julio Gonzalez (credible contender who inflicted the first loss on DM's record. Shut out over 12 rounds)
* Montell Griffen (holds two wins over Toney, eviscerated in one after Jones got DQ'd in a fight that he was starting to control)
* Eric Harding (legitimate top five contender)
* Derrick Harmon (legitimate top ten contender)
* Clinton Woods (future titleholder)
* Virgil Hill (former longreigning titleholder who would go on to win the cruiserweight title)
* Lou Del Valle (titleholder at the time he faced Jones)
* Antonio Tarver (defeated him after being drained from coming down from heavyweight)
* Merqui Sosa (Iron-chinned legitimate LH contender who was dropped and stopped in two)
* Toss in Grant (who was a decent enough boxer), Tolesco (a decent enough puncher), and Hall (who gave DM two tough fights), and you've got a LH resume that's better than a lot of people seem to think. It's probably better, for the most part, than the division that Foster ran back in the late 60's and early 70's...and no one generally has a problem including Foster on their LH lists.

What works against him is that he got stopped by Tarver and Glen Johnson in succession, and the lack of a unification fight against DM. Still, based on the numbers alone, I could see him in the same vicinity as Galindez, and Saad Muhammad...and contending for the 9-11 slot on my list.

That's not including the decision win over Toney that took place at 168, or the