Roy Jones Jr. vs. Harold Johnson

If Ken Norton in all 3 fights gave Ali a difficult time, then a fighter like Foreman, who is worlds behind Ali in skill, is going to have a hard time with Norton.

 

I don't doubt it would be hard for Johnson to pull those kind of sneak punches on Jones, especially without catching a receipt himself, but I don't think they would be crucial to his chances in this fight in as much as would be Johnson's jab in setting up follow up shots once Jones gets put in a defensive posture.

About Johnson's jab, it was certainly better than the jab of Hill at the time that Jones fought him, and he also had better follow up punches than Hill as well. Even so Hill did manage to land quite a few jabs and pester Jones, of course, not for long because the body shot ended the fight. But again, Jones basically had the jab to avoid and then he had freedom to pot shot as he liked. It's much more difficult to do this when you don't have to worry about a single effective attacking shot (a jab), but multiple shots, which Johnson could throw effectively off his jab.

 

What makes you think Johnson's jab will put Jones in a defensive posture? And I think it's totally unreasonable to believe that Johnson would be able to follow up his jab, it doesn't work with Jones, it never did for anyone. The only way you can throw and land more than one punch on Jones is when he's on the ropes or in a clinch (punches to the body). That's not where Johnson operated.

Hill landed a few jabs to the body, that's all. He landed almost nothing to the head. And going to the body is useless, as Jones has a proven ability to take punches to the body without ever even so much as flinching, it leads you nowhere.

 

Well the fact that Johnson has a good jab and good follow up punches means that Jones himself will be more reserved about leaping in and countering Johnson.

The other reason is strength. I don't think Jones will want to stay in clinches and try and outmuscle Johnson near ring centre, and so he will find himself on the ropes.

Along the ropes Johnson can work Jones' body and head. He wouldn't just aimlessly pound away like a David Telesco, he'd force Jones there and land a fair amount of accurate shots without focusing exclusively up or downstairs, but with a good mixture of both.

 

Many of Jones' opponents had a good jab and good follow up punches in all other fights, except vs Jones. Roy will leap in or counter whenever he wants, no matter how good your jab is, it can't be avoided. Johnson is not a slick defensive wizard, so I can say with certainty that Jones accuracy with power punches will hardly be lower than 50%, meaning he'd land 15 to 20 power punches per round.

It's just another myth that you could outmuscle Jones at close range. Nobody was ever able to do that. And no, Johnson wasn't stronger than many of opponents Roy fought at light heavyweight.

As for working with Jones on the ropes, you can, probably, count on landing a few punches to the body, I'll give you that, but landing accurate hard shots to the head on Jones on the ropes regularly or even semi-regularly is a thing that never happened, not in a single fight, taking any version of Jones that is on film. He protects himself way too good for that to happen. Not to forget that the reason why not too old Jones was going to the ropes vs boxer-punchers, is because they became too cautious and went into a shell, almost not throwing any punches, too afraid of his counters.

 

Let's name the fighters Jones fought with good jabs. The ones that come to mind are: an old Hill, an old southpaw Reggie Johnson and southpaw Tarver. Griffin had an ok one too, but not a real good one. Is that a good enough sample to say that someone like Harold Johnson wouldn't have success with it?

And when it comes to talking about follow up punches, Hill hardly had any, an old Reggie Johnson didn't have any decent follow ups, Tarver caught Jones when he was old and still couldn't throw more than one two's at best, and Griffin was a one shot at a time potshotter.

To me Johnson looks stronger at 175 than what Roy does. Whilst a lot of the incompetent strong guys Jones fought were too busy getting stung with everything Jones threw at them to outmuscle him, if Jones and Johnson get in a clinch, it will be Jones taking the step back.

Who did Roy effectively defend himself against the ropes from? A green Hopkins, the only excellent fighter to crowd Jones had some success doing it, but everyone else that had Jones there and tried to land were average fighters.

 

Hopkins, Malinga, Chirino (don't laugh, he had a good jab actually), McCallum, Hill, Johnson, Harding, Tarver.

Is taking a step back considered being outmuscled to you? To me this is more like if Roy tried to escape and dance away, you grab him and hold, or you get in a clinch with him in the middle of the ring, and you gradually make him retreat to the ropes when he doesn't want it, etc. The problem is Jones didn't really object going to the ropes most of the time, so he'd willingly go there.

A lot of his opponents tried to punch Jones on the ropes, too many to list them. Even taking only his title fights, probably more than 2/3 of them had him on the ropes for some time, but it lead nowhere. He not just covers up behind a block, he moves his body according to opponent's actions to make it even harder.

 

Roy Jones didn't fight that good of boxers at 175.He got knocked out twice at Lightheavy.

HE NEVER FOUGHT A LIGHTHEAVY AS GOOD AS HAROLD JOHNSON.


And its not like Jones fought a near prime Virgil Hill.Hill hadn't fought in almost a year before he fought Jones.And his last bout prior to that was a tweleve round loss to Darius.


Look what a one handed Eric Harding was able to do against Jones.And Harding isn't even close to a harold Johnson.

The old time fighters were a different breed then the fighters of today.
Sure you have fighters of today who could have held there own but they are few.

 

This is how I see it too.

 

I've always felt the 1st Griffin fight exposed the limitations of Roy's usual unorthodox boxing style. For the rematch, he abandoned all pretense of boxing & just marched forward flatfooted, loading up for the KO. Those fights have always made me skeptical of how Roy would deal w/ some of the ATG LHWs who were also great boxer/technicians - would he encounter the same difficulty implementing his usual style, & if so, would he still be successful if he were reduced to going toe-to-toe?

 

I watched that Johnson vs. Pastrano fight live on television. Sixty years have passed and it remains the worst decision I ever witnessed. I was shocked that the judges gave the fight to Pastrano. Harold won that fight by landing the harder punches repeatedly. Nobody will ever change my mind that the judges were in the bag for Willie.

 

I’ll take the guy who fought everyone over the guy who fought no one thanks. Johnson has never seen anything like Jones but the phrase, “style vs substance” has never been more fitting than here. Johnson has earned the benefit of the doubt.