Roy Jones Jr vs Michael Nunn At MW

I respect your opinion.

Nunn was better than Harding and Tarver.

But this thread is putting Nunn up against a MW version of Roy from his early 20's.

Whereas Roy fought Tarver three times at LHW, in his mid 30's.

IMHO, they're very different versions of Roy.

 

Roy was unable to figure out Tarver's style during their three fights and he had experience facing southpaws at that stage of his career. Put him at mw he has even less experience of how to fight them.

There is a reason why he would never take that fight, especially at smw

 

Exactamundo.

And lets look a little closer at things than that.......Roy was being asked to solve a 35 year old Tarver. Just how many other lh champs have that same amount of difficulty anyway? I mean, is that really asking too much?

 

Dawson destroyed Tarver x 2 and Hopkins pitched a near shut out against him.

 

Tarver was drained to death vs both of them and dead anyway vs Dawson whom just beat him, not destroyed him.
I thought you meant Harding (whom probably beat Dawson too), was bothered by that *2 , then I noticed I misread it.
Harding is the only available answer.
Of what I have seen of Harding vs Tarver #1 so far (still need to watch it entirely), he did not even beat Tarver once, but I do believe boxrec that he did it then.

 

But the end result is you do not have to climb mount everest to defeat a Tarver.

 

Both of his losses to Dawson were near shut losses

Harding clearly won the first Tarver-Harding fight. Tarver basically stopped fighting from around round 9 onwards

 

True.

Tarver at the end of the day was nothing special

 

Pre-drugs Nunn was a beast.

He was as good of a fighter as you could possibly ask for and he had all the tools to be around for a long time but drugs did him in. Very fast, amazing reflexes, excellent defense, footwork and he was a southpaw and a smart fighter with legit power. I'd take a P4P Nunn to beat a young RJ by decision.

But once he got into drugs, he lost to Toney and obviously he couldn't retire. Sad sad story.

 

Roy was dehydrated for the first fight.

In the second fight, Tarver caught him with a beautiful shot.

In the third fight, Roy had no realistic chance of winning. He was almost 37, and he'd taken a year out of the ring, after suffering two crushing defeats.

I respect your opinion on Nunn beating Roy.

But I really don't think the Tarver fights have much of a bearing.

Roy couldn't figure Calzaghe out either.

But what does that mean?

Yes, he obviously would have had less experience fighting southpaws in the early 90's at MW, but it would have been a much younger and better version of him.

Again, Roy was a completely different fighter in his early 20's, to what he was in his mid to late 30's.

When Roy fought Tarver, he wasn't at his best.

He'd slowed down, and didn't throw shots in the same manner as he'd done previously.

Would Roy have struggled to beat Tarver had they met earlier?

 

Roy was also the same age, with a lot more miles on the clock.

Would Roy have struggled as much had they fought earlier?

I don't believe so.

Roy at 23/24 was a different fighter.

Nunn would have faced the version of Roy that beat Hopkins and Tate etc, not the one who fought Tarver.

 

Chad was 26/27, and Tarver was 40.

What do you think would have happened if Roy had fought a 40 year old Tarver at 26, going all out against him?

Also, we don't know if the weight loss affected Tarver for the Hopkins fight.

 

Fair enough. But again, under different circumstances, Roy might not have had to climb Everest to pull out the win.

 

Tarver was Roy's hardest h2h opponent and his most convincing conqueror (close to Glen Johnson), so it got to tell about your ranking of Jones.

 

Ralph Tiger Jones, on a 5-fight losing streak, beating Ray Robinson tells you all that needs to be known about the ranking of Robinson.