Roy Jones Jr. vs. James "Buster" Douglas

Jones spoke about this afterwards, coming up to the Ruiz fight.

He didnt see the point in going all the way up to heavyweight to fight a guy who was basically a journeyman.

He said,he'd only go up for a big fight.

He said if he went up to fight Douglas, no one would give him any credit for that

 

(Thankyou, I figure I owe one post with effort in about every fifty.)

There's that stigma isn't there? Fighting a bigger man, well not even that, I think it's psycological. A Middleweight wouldn't make as much of fighting a Lightheavyweight, as a LHW would make of taking on a Heavyweight. (Hope this comes across clearly.) You can't go higher than Heavyweight.

As far as Jones's value of Senior's opinion, I think it must of held some weight. If a man teaches you everything you know, then you'll listen when he interjects, no matter your circumstances. Jones had enough respect for his Dad's Boxing accumen to hire him for the third Tarver fight.

Muhammed isn't daft, Jones could make almost as much money fighting guys his own size or smaller on HBO. Say what you want about Jones and his teams opponent selection, but I don't think anybody has negotiated their career better in terms of a risk/financial reward. Even calculating a Heavyweight title belt, with as little risk as possible.

As far as those picking Douglas, I have one counter question. Had Jones retired after fighting Ruiz, would you still have the same feeling that Douglas could win?

 

Ruiz was better than the comebacking Douglas and an older Jones handled him with ease, so a peak Jones wins in a canter probably by stoppage. Jones was almost impossible to land on back then and his mobility and coordination of attack and defense would see Buster floundering and badly exposed.

Remember this Douglas didn't really resemble the fired up Tokyo version at all and getting blasted out in a round by a B-level type in Savarese confims this.

 

AND Douglas vs Monaco is being over looked here.

 

In general Sir :thumbsup

Anyone picking Douglas, must be picking a very early KO.

 

That Tyson mightd win; I don't have a solid opinion. He had no trouble with Spinks. I don't know though. He'd probably bother training if he knew he were getting Roy and walk right through him.

 

Roy would need a very big ring. He's not going to hit Douglas with anything hard enough to slow the big man down, so he needs room to move. Roy's reflexes at that time were still sharp so he could avoid the majority of the punches.

What sways me to Douglas is that he only needs to land one punch to win. Similar to how Foreman lost ever minute against Moorer until one right hand changed history.

 

You don't think he could slow him down?!

Jeff. :verysad

 

I never even noticed that
I knew McClellan never saw the 10th round until he fought Benn, and never stopped anyone past 5. But the Douglas thing completely slipped past me.

 

Beating Douglas wouldnt have opened the doors for anything.

Hr had just as good of a chance going up and fighting any of those fighters with or without Douglas, who was a nobody at that stage,who hadnt won a noticable fight at HW in 8 years.

An in shape Douglas was basically the same size as Ruiz.

Jones got the Ruiz fight without fighting anyone at HW.

 

I voted Douglas by stoppage before even reading the OP.. Honestly at that point RJJ had a good shot at winning a UD, but like someone else stated Douglas would only have to land one good shot to take Roy out of there.