Roy jones jr never got in the ring with julian jackson, mcclellan or benn

and it occurred when only one was fully shot, not before.

 

Quite apart from any of that he was a drug cheat, juiced to the eyeballs.

 

Eubank openly said he didn’t want to fight him.
Benn called him the best fighter on the planet and that politics got in the way of them ever fighting.
Jackson was basically before him time.

Jones resume is actually very strong but people do mental gymnastics to underplay it

 

to be fair he was found juicing for ONE fight.


thats the same number as Vitali Klitschko, so you are describing Vitali as juiced to the eyeballs too.

I think you are justified in making the claim for that one fight, of course, well done, but you sound like you mean more.

 

Vitali never tested positive in his pro career you lying *******. He tested positive during his amateur career where the doctor prescribed Meds to heal his injury.

 

noone mentioned amateur or pro, dont tske offense because of your own mistake in reading.

so he tested positive for one fight, exactly my point.

the claim stands -both jones and VK tested positive for one fight, deal with the fact, dont get mad.

 

Here's a useful timeline, just in case anyone is interested in *rational* discussion:

1) 1993: Jones beats Hopkins to win his first title
2) 1994: Following one defense against Thomas Tate, he moves up to 168 to fight Toney
3) This means, at the earliest, he'd have been fighting the guys in question in early 1995.
4) In 2/95, Benn defeated McClellan (Jones' expected next PPV opponent) effectively ending both of their careers
5) In 3/95, a clearly declined Eubank lost to Collins and then lost the rematch
6) There *was* brief discussion about Jones/Collins, but I recall the money not being there because the public didn't particularly care for the fight. Kinda tough to argue Jones was ducking Collins after fighting Hopkins and Toney.
7) Jones had some weaker opponents at 168 around 95-96, hurt in part by Toney ballooning in weight and the tragedy with McClellan. He did fight Tony Thornton, who was solid.
8) Jones moved up to 175 in late 1996, never to return to 168
9) Jones' two 1997 fights were Montell Griffin
10) Calzaghe defeated an old Eubank in late 1997 at 168 to win the title
11) Jones essentially faced one quality opponent in 1998 (Hill) and 1999 (Johnson), with Harding to follow in 2000.

Criticism of Jones' competition from 98-02 is reasonable, though by then all of the fighters mentioned in the OP were out of it or not yet ready, in Calzaghe's case. Because Roy was finished at 168 and Joe C was building up his reputation there, basically no one talked about that fight. It wasn't until Jeff Lacy came up in the mid-00s that Calzaghe became a desirable scalp in the United States.

The one relevant fighter missing from Roy's resume was Darius M, and again he was an unknown quantity in the U.S. and the money wasn't there to get either to leave home. People did talk about it, but Roy's flirtations in the late 90s with moving up to fight Holyfield got more attention. When he eventually moved up to fight Ruiz in 2003, he was getting near the end. He was clearly declined by the time of the Clinton Woods fight in 2002, and bouncing around in weight just accelerated the process.

 

Case closed?

You said that his resume was a laughing stock.

I've asked you why.

You said that he ducked all of his challenges.

I've asked you who.


The onus is on YOU to back up your ridiculous claims.

 

The guys who mock him are either trolls or people who never saw his prime.

Roy would have been favoured over all of those guys, especially Collins.

 

jones obviously had some issues, one being the ripped fuel thing on that one occasion he failed PED tests, but you have to balance that with going through 4 divisions winning titles.

To ignore that is insane, even if it is a little easier to do these days than in the past, what with several split titles.

 

Roy was slowly declining before Tarver.

In the first Tarver fight, the weight loss was definitely a factor. He was absolutely exhausted and devoid of energy by the second half of the fight. You can clearly see that. He didn't get battered though, and he pulled out the win showing that he had heart. But Mackie Shilstone told him not to take the fight, stating that losing muscle can effect your immune system.

Antonio Tarver, Chris Byrd and Chad Dawson all had similar issues after they'd burnt muscle. Chris Byrd dropped back to LHW, and he was knocked out by a B class fighter in Shaun George.

Yes, he'd had time to recover for the rematch. He was in much better condition, both mentally and physically. Tarver caught him with the perfect shot. He deserves a lot of credit for it. But Roy was 35, he'd had 50 fights, and he'd been up to HW and back.

Roy should never have taken the Johnson fight when he did. That was a ridiculous decision. But I think he took it because the loss to Tarver had embarrassed him.

 

Over the years, Roy has been crucified for his situation with HBO. But the truth is, it left him in a no-win situation and it was unjust.

When he fought Mike McCallum, HBO had a hand in making it for the WBC title.

When he fought Lou Del Valle, they were happy that he added the WBA Title.

After he'd gained the WBA title, they then wanted him to be the unified LHW champ by taking on Reggie Johnson for the IBF title.

After he'd beaten Reggie Johnson and he'd obtained all 3 major belts, they then renewed his contract and gave him another 6 fight deal. Now if you have a fighter who has 3 belts and you give him a 6 fight contract, then you simply have to know that at the very least 2 of those fights are going to be mandatory defences. You'd have to be aware of that. And HBO had to be aware of that. He had mandatory obligations from all three of the main organisations. Now if they didn't want to show those fights, then they should have given him contracts that didn't show those mandatory defences. Now of course they were frustrated and they wanted him to fight the best opponents. I felt the same. But you can't sell a big unification match to the fans, and then be upset when the fighter signs to fight a mandatory. It's not the fighters fault. Guys like Hall, Frazier and Kelly were mandatories.

I've been a member on here for over 6 years now. And in that time I've completely busted the myth that Roy chose the path of least resistance. He really didn't. HBO had an approved list of fighters, and the big 2 fights that they desperately wanted were Dariusz and Bernard.

The Dariusz saga has been discussed to death. Roy wouldn't go to Germany because he'd been robbed in Seoul, and he'd seen Dariusz feign injury in order to gain Rocchigianni a disqualification in their first fight. So he didn't want to take 3 belts over to Germany because he didn't think he'd get fair judging. Now in my opinion, he shouldn't have been criticised for that. But Kerry Davis of HBO, is on record stating that they did everything they could to make the fight in the U.S. after Dariusz had repeatedly claimed that he'd be willing to fight there. Yet despite what Dariusz had claimed in the media, he and his advisor weren't willing to sit down to make it happen.

After the negotiations with Dariusz had broken down, the biggest fight to make apart from a HW fight, was the Hopkins rematch. The no.1 P4P fighter, vs the no.2 P4P fighter, in a grudge match. Roy agreed to to drop back to 168 so it would be at a C-W. Bernard agreed to move up. But Bernard wanted silly money. Mark Taffet of HBO, is on record stating that he offered Bernard $6m and a comeback fight on HBO further town the line, was he to have lost. But Bernard turned it down and is on record where he was demanding $10m or no fight. HBO along with Roys advisors tried to negotiate, but he wouldn't budge on that figure. He then spent a year out of the ring before coming back and fighting a mandatory for $1.5m.

In my opinion, Roy deserves no criticism for those fights not having happened. If you look at the LHW rankings from 1996-2003, Roy consistently fought the majority of the top 10 fighters. So any claims that he was happy fighting low level mandatories, whilst ducking his biggest threats, simply aren't true. And if that was the case, he'd never have tried to negotiate for fights with Dariusz and Hopkins, before going on to fight Ruiz and Tarver.

 

It was Joe who never pursued the fight.

Joe was a relatively unknown WBO belt holder at SMW when Roy was considered the best fighter in the world.

 

Roy also said that he'd be willing to fight him if he could reach a compromise with King.

 

His resume could have been better. But most of the big fights weren't viable.

Guys like Dariusz, Hopkins and Liles wouldn't fight him.