Roy Jones Jr or Pernell Whitaker?

Freddie actually gave Pete one of his most competitive lightweight scraps. He exemplifies the 'can't judge a boxer by their win-loss record' saying.

 

Whitaker was greater, but not by much.

 

Whitaker definitely. He fought much consistently better competition, his performances against Chavez, Nelson, and Vasquez were as big as any wins Jones had, he cleaned out his weight classes more thoroughly, and his losses generally weren't anywhere near as embarrassing as Jones'. The only thing Jones did that Whitaker didn't was beat a fighter with a 30 or so pound weight advantage in the ring. Overall, I don't see much of an argument for Jones here.

 

Sweet Pea. Better boxer, better defence, better chin, better resume. His performance past prime against De La Hoya was amazing. Nothing against Jones who was spectacular but Sweet Pea was just pure class.

 

Jones. he had the better tools

 

You mean steroids?

 

All kidding aside, Jones was probably outweighed by 20-30 pounds in most of his LH bouts. He couldnt afford to make any mistakes because he was basically getting hit by a heavyweight come fight time, and some of the guys he faced were good punchers. It wasnt just the Ruiz fight, it was alot of his fights at LH as well.

 

I dont think so mate.

But he wasnt big for the weight thats for sure. I think the fact he made 170 quite comfortably in his late 30's is testament to that.

 

Fair enough most is probably pushing it. Maybe Ill do some searching on the net to see what fight time weights were. I know when he fought Telesco who looked much bigger than him in the ring, he was 183 to Telesco's 185, and they had Telesco listed an inch taller, but just looking at the two Telesco looks much bigger physically. I know Tarver was well over 200 when he hit training camp.

 

Were half of those bigger opponents also B level fighters? Yes...yes they were.

 

Guys like Telesco ,Hall and Tarver were bigger physically for sure. Glenn Kelly was a stocky build for the weight.


But he did fight a lot of guys coming up from middle in his early reign. I wouldnt say guys like Otis Griffin, Reggie Johnson and McCallum were bigger then him. Same goes for Glenn Johnson.

I think its pretty clear he needed the roids to maintain that size. Thats part of the reason why Im fairly confident about picking a couple of guys over him at the weight.

 

Most were, Yes, but the point is, there is less margin for error. If you get nailed by one of those guys its over. If you fight 20 B level fighters over the course of 12 rounds, theres a pretty good chance of getting nailed now isnt there? THe fact Jones was able to fight those guys at such a physical disadvantage is pretty impressive. Given the level of comp at that time throughout 60-68, what else could he have done, he didnt have the name opponents like Pea did, so the next best thing is to move up where there is some sort of challenge. I dont think he was moving up to avoid Bernard Hopkins..

 

You think he did roids at LH?