Jones would outpoint Byrd quite easily imo. Byrd thrived on being the quicker guy in there and Roys movement would make him look silly, I'd be putting money on Jones. See Fres Oquendo fight which was Byrd at or near his best. Toney-RJJ is close and I'd like Jones over Holy. Jones would be taking punishment in these fights though and we would have likely seen a rapid deteoration similar to what actually happened anyway when he dropped to 175.
Using RJJ of the Ruiz fight in each 2003 match-up... Shot Holyfield: Roy uses elusive headmovement to make Evander keep missing get gassed early, like in Toney-Holyfield. He then schools Holyfield for the next 9 rounds, with lots of counters, pot-shotting & some clean combos. However, unlike Toney, Roy doesn't push for the stoppage. So Roy takes a shutout UD. Shot Tyson: While looking in-shape against Etienne, i think he was still too shot to win. Due to further ageing, extra layoffs & added permanent damage against Lewis, all while shot, this is more like the Tyson who fought Nielsen & Lewis, than the one who smashed Golota. Roy uses footwork & headmovement to stop Tyson landing big in the first 3 or 4 rounds, then starts to landing more & more pot-shots, as he sees Tyson getting more badly gassed. There is a early threat of power, but i see RJJ as being too good to let this Tyson land anything of note. Roy shutout UD. Byrd: Roy should closely outpoint Byrd, but will the judges be IBF or WBA provided? With IBF judges, Byrd managed to get a very "generous" decision in a fight he lost against Golota, & the same could happen here. With fair judges, RJJ by close 7-5 decision or maybe 8-4. Toney: A little bit closer than their first fight (a total whitewash), but stylistically, RJJ still has his number & takes a wide UD. As shown by this post:
Roy goes 4-0. He makes a shot Holyfield and Tyson look well uhhh shot. Toney would not and didn't have the style to beat Jones despite how "good" he was at HW. The Byrd fight would be closer than most think but Jones was just a few levels above in my opinion. This fight might echo the first Montell Griffin fight.
I agree about Lewis & Wlad... But didn't people think Byrd had no right to fight a superheavy in Vitali? Byrd won the Olympic silver medal at middleweight & turned pro at 169lbs... All i'm saying is, RJJ had even faster & more elusive headmovement than Byrd, along with sharper reflexes, & you must remember how Byrd kept making VK miss with his big righthands etc. Now logically Vitali should win, if he did have a injured shoulder (not hand) against Byrd, but i didn't notice a point at which he appeared injured, plus if he did, it was Byrd who made him tear his shoulder, by consistently making him miss with his headmovement.
Byrd dropped vitali's accuracy down to about 20% but that still meant he had to take 150 punches and a couple of clean hard shots. Could roy take shots of that nature? Would roy fight vitali on the inside as byrd or would he stick and move on the outside? I think byrd, whilst being worse than jones, had a better style against big heavyweights.
The Spinks that Tyson destroyed would have toyed with Williams. By the logic you are pandering to, it would be more damaging to loose to Ezzard Charles than Kevin McBride!
Personally I think tyson & holyfield would be way too much for jones to handle. He was fast and slippery, but roy wasn't the kind of guy to fight at such a level, mike and evander would be simply much too powerful and good for his chin to stand up to. Well, at that point on holyfield was still mobile and fast enough to defeat jones. These days jones is losing to the likes of denis lebedev & danny green, while an almost 50 year old holyfield managed to outpoint (but was also robbed) nikolai valuev. hes also competing with the old timers of today, like brian nielsen and can still win.
In my opinion, Tyson and Holy were too old and just fighting for paychecks. They would be outspeed and outboxed. Byrd is clearly being underrated, and there is no reason to think he couldn't beat Jones. The only thing we really know about Jones as a HW is that he was very quick and that he could be hurt. It's highly possible that Byrd could hurt him and earn his respect. Byrd also has good speed and boxing ability, and would be bigger than Jones. One thing about Joned is that he didn't like to fight technicians. Most of his opponents were either immobile. Toney would be motivated to fight Jones at HW, and would probably do much better than the first time. I see him beating Jones at HW.