Roy Jones Vs today's best fighters, across 6 divisions.

I don't think it would have made any difference who refereed the fight. Any decent ref should break up a guy from holding. A lot of Ruiz's HW opponents were guilty of holding though. HW's tend to hold more.

I've watched the Ruiz fight about 5 or 6 times, and I can't see an issue.

 

Styles make fights. I think it could have been competitive.

 

:good

 

You've made some good points here Brighton, but I feel as though you've been a bit harsh too.

Roy's made a lot of mistakes in his career, and he's ducked/dismissed a few fighters. But I don't think that he took the path of least resistance, and other factors were involved in certain fights not being made. Every month on here, we seem to get a thread on who Roy ducked. But a lot of people aren't aware of the politics involved. Boxing politics rob fight fans all the time of great fights. There's lots of factors and circumstances involved. It's not as simple as just saying "Roy ducked him, he was scared etc!"

He took more than two calculated risks. He was a four weight world champion. You've mentioned Toney and Ruiz, but he took a huge risk when he rushed back to 175 for Tarver.

As for the fighters he didn't fight, only Collins and Nunn were ducked/dismissed in my opinion.

At 160, Roy was held back by his Father. Fred Levin offered Roy title shots, and Roy's father - Big Roy, turned them down on Roy's behalf, when Roy hadn't even been made aware of them. When fighters like Toney, McCallum, Nunn, Johnson, Jackson and McClellan were all facing each other, Big Roy was having Roy fight nobodies in Pensacola for peanuts. Roy only started to make waves, after he'd split from Big Roy in 1992. But by the time he'd beaten Hopkins at 24 in 1993, he was already too big for the weight. After Hopkins, he had four fights, and only one of them was at 160. He was fighting Malinga and the others as high as 167, so he moved up and fought Toney in Nov 94. So he missed a lot of great fights at 160. But he didn't duck guys like McClellan and Jackson, the fights were simply never viable at the time. Look at Toney's 160 resume, and he's only 5-6 months older than Roy. Roy could have found himself in a similar position.

At 168, Eubank didn't want the fight, and Benn and Liles were Don King fighters. According to Roy and Greg Fitz, Don wanted future options on Roy. Roy was willing to sign a one fight deal for Benn, but King wanted to dig his claws into the worlds best fighter. Also, Roy's handlers at the time - The Levin's, were very reluctant to deal with King. So Roy never really had a chance of unifying at 168, so he moved up to 175.

At 175, he was open to fighting Dariusz M, as long as it was in America. He'd had his fingers burnt in Seoul, and he didn't think a knockout would be enough in Germany. He sent Brad Jacobs for various meetings with Kerry Davis - HBO Sports VP, and they could never get Dariusz's promoter to sit down and discuss terms. Davis was under huge pressure at the time to deliver HBO a huge fight for Roy. He went out of his way to make it happen, and he proposed the idea of a double header to feature both fighters on the same card. It was a great idea to hype the fight, and to introduce DM to the U.S. public. But DM's promoter turned down the proposal. In a 2003 interview with Seconds Out, Murad Muhammad who promoted Roy, said that DM had wanted $6M to fight Roy in 2001, and he was making between $1-1.5M for each WBO title defence in Germany. Also, according to Roy in a recent interview, HBO actually offered DM $5M, but it was turned down. So the effort was made to secure that fight.

As mentioned, Roy dismissed/ducked Nunn at 175, and in my opinion there was no excuse for that. Also while at 175, Roy had talks with Holyfield late in 2001, regarding a potential fight in 2002, if Holyfield was successful against Ruiz, and he held the WBA belt. But after Holyfield drew with Ruiz in their rubber match, Roy turned down the opportunity of fighting him, and decided to stay at 175 for a little longer. That decision was made due to Roy feeling as though he wouldn't have gotten any credit, and there would have been no title at stake. Then the following year in 2002, he was open to rematching Hopkins at a catchweight, but Hopkins priced himself out.

While at HW, Roy desperately wanted a Tyson fight after he'd fought Ruiz, and he kept his physique in the hope of the fight getting signed. Murad Muhammad spoke at length with Mike, but the fight wasn't possible to make.

So it's a myth that Roy was a serial ducker, and he didn't want tough fights.

Roy's resume could have had Benn, DM, Hopkins II, Holyfield (faded) and Tyson (faded) on it.

Also, if Roy had have been moved quicker after he'd turned pro, it could have contained some the great 160 guys of the early 90's.

So Roy did miss a lot of guys, but they were many circumstances involved.

There's no way that Roy deliberately DUCKED Jackson, McClellan, Eubank, Benn, Liles, and DM etc.

A guy who feared all of those fighters, would not have moved up to HW at 34, after having had 50 fights.


Regards, Loudon.

 

HW's hold.

You're blaming the ref, because it would pain you to give Roy any sort of credit.

Also, Ruiz wasn't handpicked. :good

 

Roy wouldn't get any credit whatever he did.

Lets see how many of today's 168 and 175 fighters, will go up and fight a top 5 HW.

There's a good reason why Roy was the first former MW in 106 years, to go up and win a version of the HW title.

 

:good

Hope everything's going ok my man.

I'll reply to you soon.