Well I believe Lennox Lewis is an excpetion as well, mostly because of his mental toughness and the fact he was a very big heavyweight where the speed is not as big of a factor for him as it would be for a guy like Jones. As said earlier a guy who relies on his speed and loses a step, still fights the same way. Normally he could react quicker to a counter or moving out of the way, now he's caught or misses with his shots. Jones Jr rarely had more physical advantages (size and strengh) over his opponents besides the speed factor.
Lewis is a good example of someone that got better in his 30's. I think a lot of that was a delay in development with Pepe Correa as his trainer. Lewis progressed quite a bit after ditching Correa.
Definitely. Steward taught him how to fight at range, use his height and improved his balance and inside skills tremendously. That being said it took at little extra work on Lewis part for conditioning, because of his advanced age. Lewis for the most part was a very good pupil. Trained hard consistently and lived clean.
I have Jones as the 4th best fighter P4P ever. His legacy will grow as time passes, when he will be measured more by what he has accomplished than what more he could have done. Keith
i agree right with you that he is one of the greatest fighters of all time:good robinson ali armstrong louis/duran pep greb charles leonard jones :bbb
I also think that heavyweights in general go in their prime later than smaller fighters - physically (bigger men tend to take weight during their twenties) and in term of boxing. There are exceptions like Tyson but he was a genetic freak.
The first time I saw Roy Jones fight was against Jorge Vaca. He made Vaca, no can, look like a third rate bum and knocked him out inside a round. I knew I was watching someone pretty special that evening. For me he is undeniably one of the most physically gifted fighters ever to lace 'em up. What he sometimes did in the ring was astonishing, leaving you both amused at how clearly superior to his opponent he was, and impressed at how he went about his business. He was more that just ridiculously physically blessed though. One still has to make that athleticism work for you, and he did. He had a kind of unorthodox brilliance that made him next to impossible to beat below 175. I think at 160 he would be a head-to-head nightmare for anyone, be it Robinson, Hagler, Monzon...whomever. James Toney's technical excellence simply had no answer to Jones' raw speed. And Jones had serious power at 160, too. I lost track of his career somewhat once he moved to 175. I saw his main fights after that, but not too many of them. I wished he could have stayed at 160 and cemented his place among the greats there. And I have no doubt he would have, had he stayed there. But having said all that, I cannot call myself a fan. Looking back, there aren't too many really fond memories I have of him fighting. There was no ebb and flow to many (if any) of his fights...no real drama that sticks long in the memory. He fought some guys that had no business being in the ring with him. What it boils down to really is that I never really got to see Jones show his character in the ring.
very insightful post:think i have heard that his most epic showing is the 1st tarver fight which really showed his vulnerability but he still willed himself to win.
yeah he was. His skills were probably one of the best boxing ever saw, but his opposition and heart for boxing were not the best. Skillwise incredible. But I am not sure that is enough to put him as one of the ATG. Not to me, but if I rate his skill level he would be top 10 skill level ever. Not fighter ever, but skill level.
Very nice post. I would say that in a sense, Jones was a victim of his own superiority. Even the Ruiz fight was a relatively easy win. Then when he loses, he gets blown out twice. The only fights in his entire career where during any point of a match the end result was not clear is the first Tarver I fight. He really had to dig deep to pull out that win. I think Tarver might have even won that fight if he didn't gave away rounds 5-7. And like McGrain said, i think the first time he really got to show his fighting heart was against Calzaghe where he was basically losing every round and had a horrendous cut, but never gave in.
Pontius makes a good point about the first Tarver fight in response to fist of fury's post. I agree Tarver threw the middle rounds away, but Jones pulled it out by digging deep in the final rounds of that fight. I thought Jones showed a lot of heart in his fight with Glenn Johnson. There was one round, I believe it was the fifth, that was really impressive. Jones was fighting back bravely when hurt in that stanza.
Have to say theres some great discussion here lads. I can't really add anything new other than put me in the "RJJ Ability > RJJ Carrer" Column. You're only as good as your opponants.
Because so much discussion comes up of Roy Jones ducking people I would like to hear some of the opponents he should have faced or allegedly ducked? The only fight I always wanted to see was Jones against Mclellan, just for stylistic purposes. Unfortunately I knew it would never happen because of their friendship, but I would like to have some opinions on his opponents. Theres always the talk that he should have faced better opposition.
You guys are probably right in saying that against Joe and Antonio he showed character. Not Frazier type character, but character. That's fair enough.