Prime Roy Jones jr vs Joe Louis

We all don’t know much about JHL. Almost no film on him. He was blind in one eye when he fought Louis but apparently still LH champ and beating light heavy’s. Did his ability wan by time he fought Louis? He was supposed to be fast but not so that he could get away from Louis who was not known to be super fast on feet. He was 180 lbs and gave away 20 lbs to Louis for the fight. Roy was 193 when he beat Joh Ruiz for heavyweight title would only give away 7.

 

I'm sure he was, if that helps.

 

He's in the mix H2H. It'd take an awfully brave or silly person to claim him better than Charles emphatically.

 

Lots of Louis opponents did better than John Henry Lewis so I don't understand the point of bringing him up to begin with.

 

Conn had a much better Chin. Louis one of the best finishers in history would do very bad things to the brittle Chinned Jones.

 

How in God's name would you persuade Jones to take the fight?

A Career high pay day, win lose or draw perhaps?

Otherwise, he isn't interested.

 

Louis could make light heavyweight with early weigh ins and rehydration. So why would he not take the fight? He didn't avoid guys at light heavyweight so why would Louis be an exception

 

This is the one match-up that would deflate the greatest Golden Cow of Classicist boxing enthusiasts.

Roy would pick him apart and KO him.

 

He did avoid Michalczewski. But to be fair, Michalczewski avoided him as well, lol.

 

I disagree.

Louis averaged around 203lbs at weigh in during his prime, which means after consuming food to fuel his energy for the fight, he'd probably average around 206lbs on the evening of his fights.

Here is a link to recorded fight night weights from the day before fight weigh in era - https://basementgymboxing.blogspot.com/2014/01/fight-night-boxing-weights-list-of.html

The fight night weights of 10 x LHWs are documented. The heaviest is 200lbs, the 2nd heaviest is 191lbs and the average is 187.7lbs.

By contrast, go to 5:58 of this video - Oleksandr Usyk vs Michael Hunter HBO Broadcast - YouTube - and you'll see that on fight night for their CW contest, Usyk weighed 207lbs, whilst Hunter weighed 197.5lbs.

Louis's fight night weights were roughly approximate to those of average CWs today, certainly way in excess of typical LHWs. Of course, if he actually fought in this era, he'd have the option to utilise PEDs and/or modern strength & conditioning/diet/legal supplements to bulk up above & beyond the size he was when he actually competed.

 

See I'm glad you said that I've always held the opinion it was both fighters fault.

RJJ normally gets criticised for not fighting Michalczewski but it's simply because neither fighter wanted to travel its as simple as that.

 

Jones' vulnerabilities didn't show up till he was 34. Before that he was never even buzzed. Conn was KD'd by a couple middleweights. So, "much better" is a bit of a stretch. What isn't a stretch is that Jones had massively more pop and more speed.

 

This just isn't true. Did you happen to ever see the Lou Del Valle fight?

 

You're right. As soon as I typed that I had a cringe. I was thinking he might have been hurt against Sosa but it was the lefty Del Valle. Jones bounced up seemingly unhurt for what it's worth. That was just a weird fight. I believe he had sparred a lot with Del Valle but then felt the need to go southpaw a bunch and overcommit more than usual. Not a great night for Roy.

 

I have to doubt Louis agreeing to come down to 175.