"Prime" Roy Jones Jr. v. Antonio Tarver

Good point, and I also hate when people say that Roy chin issues were only due to him being weight drained but if that was the case he would have gotten KO in the first fight with Tarver because he had just came back down from HW and not only that but he is still fighting at 175 till this day so obviously weight draining excuses have run their course.

 

Tarver by brutal KO just like he did in the second fight.

 

Jones was at his peak from 94-98.... Most of his LHW performances he adjusted his style, became more of a 12 round fighter than at Middleweight and Super Middleweight.


If Tarver would not have been beat by Harding, we would have seen them in the same ring around 2001 or so.... Which even by then I feel Jones would have dominated the fight convincingly.....

Even in all his fights with Tarver, every time Roy Jones let his hands go, Tarver had no answer... Roy did enough to win the first fight, and in the third fight the only two rounds Roy threw punches, he won big and even could have finished Tarver off.... Prime Roy could keep that kind of pace up for every minute of the round, not in bursts like old faded Roy, which leads me to belive he would beat Tarver worse than he did the ATG fighters he holds a victory over.

Just Imagine Jones best rounds in all the Tarver fights for a sustained 12 rounds...... Tarver isn't half the fighter Jones was, and will be remembered for that.

 

Against a Prime Jones????? Please, a faded Jones that dropped from heavyweight and beat him. Remember Chris Byrd???? Took shots from all kinds of hard hitting heavyweights but dropped down and got knocked out by a counter puncher. Ive heard you talking about other fighters that have had weight loss issues, quit being such a *** and MAN UP to your claims....:yep

 

Terrible logic. Just because Tarver stopped him in the second fight doesn't mean **** in relation to the first, it isn't as though he got hit with identical punches in each fight, that is a ridiculous suggestion.

Obviously losing 10-15 pounds of muscle had a terrible overall affect on Roy, but his chin has obviously never been granite, it his ability to avoid punishment that has always been his strong point.

 

Every time Roy Jones let his hands go, Tarver had no answer, just froze like a deer in the headlights. At the end of the first fight, Tarver asked why his big lips werent busted up....I say because Roy landed such a body attack that had Tarver wincing in pain and sometimes reluctant to follow Jones to the ropes... The announcer should have asked if Tarver was pissing blood or not.

In the third fight with Tarver, the only rounds Jones let his hands go he won. Had Tarver looking like he was gassed and ready to go.

The point is, a prime Jones could have kept that pace going for every minute of every round, and possibly knocked Tarver out late, which I would pick even from a 2001 or 2002 version of Jones.

Jones was caught at the right place and right time, just like many great fighters of the past that have lost to fighters that they would have killed at their best.... End of Story.

 

I agree that 168 was probably a better weight for Roy than 175, but that isn't the same as saying he was past his prime when he was there. And the fact that he adjusted his style to the weight as he went along means he got better there, not worse. In fact, prior to Tarver, his worst performances above 168 were early on against McCallum and Griffin (the first fight).

That's not true at all, the whole way Tarver caught him in the 2nd fight was while Roy was in the middle of unloading on him. Roy was showing no problem with his stamina (unlike the first fight), and had never shown any indication that his chin was any less than it had been. That's what makes this loss to difficult to excuse, you can't pin it on a decline in his chin or his stamina.

Against Tarver? That's really just an assumption, and a very questionable one at that. I agree with you that Roy appeared to show stamina problems in the first fight, which was his first coming back down from heavy. But not in the 2nd and 3rd fights. You're just assuming that when Roy didn't throw punches in the 3rd fight, it was because he was too tired to, when it could just as easily be that he didn't want to (for whatever reason) or that Tarver was doing something to shut him down. In fact, Tarver looked far more weary (and like an old man in general) in that fight than Jones did, yet still forced himself to keep his hands moving enough to win decisively. Given that, using "Roy must've been tired" as an excuse for the third fight is still shaky even if it was true.



Also, you could just as easily look at what Tarver was/wasn't doing in these fights and look at them from the opposite angle. When Tarver was willing to take chances (as he did in the 2nd fight), he creamed Roy. When he was tentative and "waited" on Roy (as he did in the 1st and 3rd fights), then he either lost or struggled. Given how decisively Tarver won in the 2nd fight, IMO it's his change in strategy that should be looked out, not Roy's.





Besides, Roy was at least a 7-1 or 8-1 favorite to win all three of his next fights after beating Ruiz (and was only a slight underdog in the 3rd Tarver fight), so practically everyone else agreed that he wasn't yet that far past his best either. He just lost anyway.

 

tarver would always beat roy 2/3

 

You have some good points.... But there is nothing you or anyone can say that will make me believe that a 34 year old Jones was as good as a 28 or even 32 year old Jones...

The weight loss made him a different fighter, not the Roy of old.

In the second fight Roy was not "unloading" on Tarver.... He was throwing one shot at a time, when he got got caught he missed the right hand and was trying to land the left hook which I think would have got off in his prime.


Ill back my previous statement up.... YES every time Roy let his hands go, Tarver had NO answer, he sat like a deer in the headlights and got scored upon, mostly by body shots that had him wincing in pain, even reluctant to follow Roy to the ropes in the first fight, (where Tarver did most of his scoring)

Roy didn't show stamina problems in the 2nd or 3rd fight????


Well thats not a legit statement being as how the 2nd fight was not even 2 rounds long, and the 3rd fight he clearly had Tarver hurt in the 5th round but lacked the stamina to pull the trigger. Roy's legs were gone, that is the number one thing you need to remember, he didn't have the legs to move around the ring like he once did, yes Roy had a major stamina problem in the 3rd fight.

All in all, I don't think you are being fair to Roy.....You cannont honestly say he was physically in the state that he was 5 years earlier.... Boxing is a sport where people sometimes age overnight....Roy is no different, you can't tell me the Roy that beat Tarver in the first fight was even a fraction of the Roy that dominated a much greater fighter in James Toney.

 

A prime Roy would have a field day with Tarver. Corner stoppage by the 10th.

 

If he didn't have a chin he wouldn't have taken the punches Tarver landed on him in the first fight which were serious flush shots from a fast strong motivated and hungry Tarver.