"Prime" Roy Jones Jr. v. Antonio Tarver

I do actually think this is always a harder fight for Roy but in his prime he still wins hands down.

Quite possibly Tarver isnt even active enough to take a round off him, though I think he gives him a reasonably hard time.

I just think the whole tall southpaw thing, with a fighter who knows how to use his height would give Roy something to think about in there. Thats part of the reason why I think Spinks would beat Roy but thats for another thread.

 

he should rightfully be compared to rjj as he uses the same stance and all around similar fighter, albeit less of a fighter, but similar and is going to take the division by storm, he is the undisputed #1 fighter at light heavyweight at the moment, he holds wins over the two best light-heavyweights out there and a fight with the winner of b-hop/pavlik looks a realistic target

 

Dawson reminded me of RJJ tonight...He actually had a vast arsenal of punches..More variety than RJJ .. He is just as fast IMHO at this weight...Roy did have the edge in Power... Anyway Tarver looked old tonight..hes pretty much done

 

He isn't in RJJ's class, sorry.

 

Roy would get his Glass Jaw shattered. Wait, he already did. Twice. :smoke

 

Who said hes in RJJs class?

 

Well you said he had more variety of punches than RJJ and that he was just as fast, trust me neither is true.

 

Jones at his peak had a lightning fast right hand lead that wrecks all lefties.

 

It's idiots like Rico, that make ESB's good posters not want to post anymore.....with their childish, hating bull****.....

It really gets old.:--(

 

We already saw it, when a slightly past prime Roy fought Tarver. Tarver beat him twice very decisively, once via quick annhilation. That's enough to prove he deserves the benefit of the doubt against any version of Roy. And IMO, if this was any fighter other than Roy, so many people wouldn't have so much trouble acknowledging that.

 

I can believe your first sentence, but your second is just a myth.

Roy's showed as good a chin (relatively speaking) as he ever did in the first Tarver fight, and it was tested probably more than in any other fight.

There's nothing to indicate that Roy's chin was any less than it ever was when Tarver knocked him out. And pretty much everyone agreed, since most people expected Roy to win the second fight even easier than the first. Tarver simply knocked him out regardless.

Another unsubstantiated claim that I see a lot.

If that was true, then he wouldn't have lost so decisively twice to Tarver when he wasn't that far past it. You don't lose so pathetically to a guy twice if you were capable of beating him easily a year or two earlier.

 

Roy's prime ended in 98 or 2000 by the latest..... 4 years before Tarver beat him. "Slightly past it" is a stretch:yep

Roy did drop 20 pounds of muscle and beat Tarver, that we know... a 98 or even a 02 version of Roy would whip Tarver IMO...

Tarver caught Roy with a great punch....That I will not deny, but I don't believe that punch would have been landed on a prime Jones, his reflexes were slowed, at that point he was throwing one shot at a time and getting hit with punches that never would have hit him earlier on even a year, taking into account the weight drop. Which has effected other great fighters in the past.

If you think Roy wasn't much past it in the Johnson fight or the third Tarver fight, maybe you should do some research.... If you think Roy isn't that much past it now, then again you need to look at when he was a great fighter, and realize that he could overcome the good fighters that caught him in the right place at the right time.:good

 

"Research" will show you that Jones was more highly rated than he ever was going into the first Tarver fight, and he was coming off one of his best performances ever in his big win over Ruiz. So yes, he was past his prime, but not that much past it. Hopkins was much farther removed from his own peak when he fought Tarver, and he disposed of him easily. Shane Mosley and Casamayor are also farther past their bests now than Roy was going into the Tarver rematch, and they aren't getting decimated/embarassed in the way that Roy was.

To try to imply that Jones was "past it" by '98 (when he was about to score some of his most impressive performances against Hill, Johnson, DelValle, etc.) is just absurd, and the very height of revisionism.

 

I dont believe that one bit. Roy went all 12 with lesser fighters than Tarver. Sometimes people go overboard with this prime roy ****, like he was untouchable. I still think Roy wins, but stylewise, Tarver gives him a good fight.

 

I think if you look at the 5th round of his third fight with Tarver that's how a prime Roy would look against Tarver,when watching that particular round I was frustrated that Roy did'nt pull the trigger so to speak because he had Tarver but as the saying goes with Roy these days is that he fight not to win necessarily but not to get knocked out.