Roy Jones Jr vs James Toney - Underrated win for Roy ?

Hopkins was miles behind him in development and a totally different type of fighter. Having said that he'd be solidly favored at his best but i favor him over everyone else around the weight too.

 

Oh definitely Jones was certainly closer to his peak than Hopkins, I think it took Hopkins a few more years before he really started to find his groove.

Funnily enough Hopkins was known as a bit of a KO artist in his early days, before he made the transition into a technical fighter. Doesn't Hopkins have one of the quickest KO's in Middleweight history ?

But I don't see that even a prime Hopkins fighting his technically sound type of fight, would fare any better vs Jones TBH who would pot shot him and be way too fast for him getting off first constantly.

 

I think the Hopkins of 2002 was actually more stylistically suited for Jone than the more aggressive 1993 version, even though Jones had slowed a bit by then. If I were to choose a version of Hopkins it would be the 1997 one who was the complete package in terms of offense and defence. His demolition of Johnson is my favourite performance of his. Of course, Jones was laying out Griffin in 1 round by then...

 

If he catches Jones on an off night as in Griffin 1, I think Hopkins of that time might pull it off. No version of Hopkins beats the Jones of Griffin 2, though.

Needless to say, that goes for Toney as well.

 

Fantastic win for me and I find it hard to believe that Toney, who had looked very comfortable in every previous fight at 168, suddenly neglected preparations for his biggest fight at the weight*. With that said, Jones did continue at 168 for another two years, so it wasn't his last one there, as it was for Toney.

*I have a similar problem with the notion that Duran, who could slack off a bit for non-title fights but always got into good shape for title fights, conveniently couldn't get into good shape for Leonard 2, Benitez and Hearns, three of the four best fighters he faced.

 

Yeah funny that haha

 

I like that Toney got in shape for Prince Charles Williams but 3 months later he trains on cream buns and milkshakes for RJJ!!

I’ll concede he probably blew up in weight but Toney always blew up between fights and it wasn’t usually an issue. The primary issue this time was he was meeting a guy, faster, more mobile and flat out more talented than he was. It didn’t happen very often.

 

Yes, that's what somehow gets forgotten. Toney, like Duran, had a history of blowing up in weight between fights, but still had managed to get the business done.

168 looked like the perfect weight for him, high enough to get the down to weight properly. Against Williams he showed great late round stamina, just what you'd suspect a wight drained fighter not to do. But against Jones, a much more formidable opponent, he supposedly all of a sudden didn't give a damn?

Does that seem like the most plausible explanation? Or might it be that he just lost to a guy that thoroughly dominated guys he himself struggled with or even lost to?

If we used Occam's razor more here, the discussions would be a lot shorter.

 

I remember at the time Toney’s shellacking of Iran Barkley was what put him in the top echelon of p4p fighters. That was about 18 months prior to fighting Roy but he’d fought about 11 times in that time. He was super busy to his credit but the blowing out narrative rings pretty hollow imo.

 

You only seem to read what you want to read rather than what is written. I wasn't rating how they did against common opposition. Why would that matter? Duran beat Barkley who pwned Hearns twice. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing. Round robins don't mean much in boxing.

And if I were to play your game, Toney wasn't getting slept by bums later in career like Roy was. Why not include that in their overall estimation? I know the thread isn't concerned with that.

I only said that Toney could have performed way better on some other night than he actually did. You think that's an excuse? Good for you. Your Leonard mania has you seeing excuses everywhere outside the boxrec records.

 

Very underrated win and Toney gave a good account of himself. Banger of a fight. Not sure it was absolute peak Toney, though. Altogether I think if they fight in different career stages with different qualities of physical composition (bad chin vs fat) and different motivation levels (lazy vs overconfident) the results would be different but probably more likely have RJJ winning most of them.

 

You were answering a post where I did.

And that Jones beat several common opponents much easier and easily beat Toney himself proves an awful lot. Everything you can prove really. The rest being wishful thinking.

That would be because we were comparing prime versions.

Did Toney have greater longevity? Yes. So now we can consider that discussion closed.

You have excuses for every single fight that disproves your point. In this case it would be 4 for RJJ and Toney alone. You don't have to have any sort of mania to spot those excuses.

 

I wouldn't call it underrated I would say it blended in with a lot of wins like beating bhop and stopping Virgil Hill with a body shot in 1 rd...he was an incredible talent...as far as the fight with Toney and styles it was a horrible matchup for Toney and great for RJJ....Toney fed off aggressive come forward fighters and RJJ was anything but a stand in slugger he was a sniper.....all one has to do is watch how Nunn dominated JT before getting caught.....historically JT and RJJ are ATG fighters and it was a great win for RJJ

 

I never saw anyone "underrating" that win for him. It was an ATG win regardless of Toney's weight issues. He was just too fast that night. Had he ran out of gas and Toney came on and KO'ed him, nobody would have really said anything about his weight.

Hopkins may be the "underrated" win for him.

 

Wasn't that Jones's first fight at Light Heavyweight when he fought Griffin ?

I don't want to make excuses but maybe he was still adjusting to the weight ?

Or maybe Griffin's awkward style may of thrown him off a bit ? as Griffin did also get two wins over Toney aswell with his awkward style out hustling him.