Roy Jones Junior's Punch Resistance.

Both had long lay offs, I wonder if that had something to do with it. Taking a break from the damage of boxing

 

He should of retired after John Ruiz fight, even after 1st Tarver fight would of been fine also. Because Jones showed some heart to win a tough fight whilst not at his best.

 

Foreman's second career lasted from his late 30s to nearly 50, and he was still a tank at the end despite taking a ton of damage during that second career.

Ali, same thing in terms of maintaining punch resistance. He took two perfect rights from Shavers, the kind that knock everyone down, and stayed on his feet. He was completely helpless in his fight against Holmes and there was a point where Holmes was trying to knock him out yet couldn't manage it.

I can think of fighters who maintained their punch resistance into a senior career, but only these two examples of where it somehow improved.

 

Jones even complained about the weight cut in the first fight when he won

 

He weighed in at 192 off memory for the Ruiz fight. Basically, he entered the ring in the 190s for Ruiz and 180s for his light heavyweight fights.

It may have affected him in the first Tarver fight, but there’s no reason why it would’ve done anything after that. Tarver ruining his confidence and punch resistance is why he fell off a cliff. It would’ve been a lot more gradual without that ko.

 

Yep, those are strange cases.
Maybe with Ali, he was dropped in his younger days, overly confident and obviously dancing dropping his guard.
Where as he got older he was planting his feet more, or covering up against the ropes.
But still great chin anyway.
With Foreman, he was knackered and letting his guard down against Ali in the rumble,. So eventually he was gonna get caught.
Against Lyle, all form of defence went out of the window and allowed Lyle to Crack him often.
Against Jimmy Young, George was tired again and was dropped.

When he came back he's learnt his lesson, paces him self, guards better so he's taking shots better.
That's my opinion mate anyway.

 

I agree I don’t think Tarver gets enough credit for what he did to Jones. Jones looked good in the second fight speed wise, but Tarver didn’t respect him and nudged in closer and close after Jones threw until he timed him with a perfect counter hook. That shot - crushed Jones’s confidence. And from then on he wasn’t the same. You could see fear in eyes in the Johnson fight. He didn’t want to get hit. The weight loss from Heavy is an excuse that’s overplayed. Jones looked himself in Tarver 2

 

People have a lack of knowledge or believe what they want to believe.
Roy Jones was a top amateur fighter for YEARS and his father took him around the country and he sparred ALL of the top fighters pro and amateur. For years.
He was sparring WORLD champions when he was still a teenager. If his chin was that bad it would have been found out.
Been around the game a long time and never once heard any stories about Roy getting laid out or dropped by anyone and I got to watch Roy spar in person when he was an amateur and it was against a former World champion who could punch and Roy never had a problem. Matter of fact they stopped the session early to spare the former world champion further embarrassment.

 

I never said his chin was that bad, I said theres a lack of evidence of him taking actual full blooded shots in professional fights. That it's hard to evaluate how good or how bad his chin actually was.

That's also down to how good he was, so that's also a plus in my book. I'd rather be known as the guy who don't get hit by punches.

 

I agree with you in the 1st fight Jones looked sluggish because of the weight loss, but in the 2nd fight he definitely looked improved. And was winning the fight until he got caught with a perfect counter left hand, then from that point on Jones become very gunshy and lacked confidence. And his durability seemed to erode, but overall I agree Tarver deserves more credit for the KO and I'm a big fan of Roy Jones aswell.

 

Agreed, I can't really remember Roy being tagged flush with a really good shot too often before his downfall. I tend to think he had, overall, a worse than average chin for an ATG. Doesn't diminish his accomplishments much, he got plenty of good work done & was one of the best I've ever seen. Where it really hurts him, is in H2H discussions against other ATGs.

I was just saying recently that Holyfield's chin is considered great, but I think it's great more due to incremental head/neck rolling with shots, as opposed to have a concrete jaw ala Ali/Foreman/McCall, etc. Many have disagreed with that, but they still haven't shown where Evander was hit a really big, fully connecting shot without an obvious effect. He almost always reacts negatively when that happens. Heck, even the halfway decent uppercut Tyson landed early in their first fight, made Evander sort of back off and aknowledge it. And it wasn't much of a shot anyway.

 

I think it was a combination of old age and the fact that many of his later losses came against cruiserweights

 

No doubt! I tend to think 'old age' is why Roy's reflexes (when rolling with shots) started slowing down.

Someone mentioned earlier about Jones' ability to make the tiniest head movements and take power off of shots, and I agree totally with that. Slowing reflexes/old age are the most likely culprits it seems.