Roy Jones.

Jones never lost until he was 35. The likes of Duran, Whitaker, Hagler, Chavez, Leonard, Ezzard Charles all lost and were considered done before that age. Do they all have poor fundamentals? Even Ali was stealing a living by that time. Roy just got old like everyone. Only Moore and Hopkins were able to fight at a decent level at an older age.

Good post although I think you're underrating the level, it was a good era and Jones has many underrated wins. It's just older eras get too much rose tinted treatment.

 

Jones is kind of like Ali in that his physical skills were his greatest weapon. Once those skills faded, he did have boxing ability of say Larry Holmes or Bernard Hopkins to outbox guys. They could jab & counter & minimize action when needed. Roy's strength was being more gifted than everyone he fought.

Roy is one of the most gifted boxers I ever saw. I could immediately look at him & say "this guy is good".

 

All those fights that you've mentioned would have been great.

But they didn't happen for various reasons.

Roy gets a lot of unfair criticism IMHO.


Everyone wanted to see a Dariusz M fight. But without boring everyone with all of the details, in the end, neither guy would travel to make it happen.

A fight against Calzaghe in 2002, wasn't viable. As great as Joe was, he'd done nothing back then. He was relatively unknown outside of the U.S. and he fought in a different division. He brought nothing to the table. There was no demand for the fight. Also, he wouldn't fight in the U.S. or at LHW. The fight could only have happened if Roy had've dropped back to SMW. Why would he have done such a thing? Brief talks were held, but Roy's other options were Tarver and Ruiz. Then the following year, Joe spoke of a potential fight against Roy, saying that because of the element of risk involved, he'd have to be paid 'The Crown Jewels'

When Roy was at MW, he missed out on opportunities to fight great fighters. That was because his father held him back, and he was having Roy fight substandard opposition for peanuts. Roy only started to make progress after they went separate ways and Roy signed with HBO. So while the likes of Jackson, Gerald, Toney, Nunn and Johnson were all fighting each other, Roy was fighting guys like Lester Yardbrough. After Roy had beaten Hopkins for the vacant IBF title, he wanted big money fights. The following year, he moved up to SMW to fight Toney, while Gerald remained at MW. Then in 95, Gerald moved up to SMW, but his only fight at the weight, was his tragic one against Nigel Benn. So they missed each other.

Regarding Benn, the fight was hard to make around that time, because of Roy's handlers - The Levin's, not wanting to tie in with King. But after his tragic fight with Gerald, Benn declined pretty quickly.


I would have loved those fights as much as any other fan of Roy's, but the reluctant tag that he wore around his neck in the 90's-00's, was totally unjust.

 

Well you said it was all smoke and mirrors.

Fights are hard to make.

It's not just a case of a guy ducking someone.

 

Great post. One caveat though: he fought a few truly undeserving guys such as Brannon.

 

It was smoke and mirrors.

So what Roy Jones missed out on every possible meaningful fight that could be made in the late 90s and early 00s, he knocked out Glen Kelly with his hands behind his back. Magic.

 

Missed every 'meaningful fight' yet beat countless opponents who beat the 'meaningful opponents'. There's some smoke there.

 

Brannon was IBF #1 contender at the time, and Jones was actually criticized by some for fighting Lucas months before instead of Brannon. Brannon turned it done, I'm guessing because he didn't want to be involved in the basketball game/fight that Jones had planned.

Might have been better for him, since Jones was looking to fight into the later rounds that day. Instead Brannon got killed in 2 rounds. Though Brannon had to watch Jones sit in the middle of the ring and do a Q and A on HBO.

Interesting enough, Jones basically called out some fighters during that Q and A, saying they had been offered a fight and everyone turned it down. Hopkins was the only guy considering it, and had multiple chances to take a fight with Jones and didn't.

 

Of course, and that's a fair point.

There were many other mandatories as well, like Rick Frazier etc.

But those types of guys are on every fighters resume.

But at least when he fought his mandatories, he got to keep nearly all of the purse, and he got to keep his belts.

Whereas, fighting someone like Joe, would have been pointless to him back then.

You can't look at Joe an*lyse his whole career, you have to look at how things were, specifically in 2002.

Joe wasn't well known or even ranked at LHW.

So there was literally nothing to gain, unless Roy had've been paid an absolute fortune, to have dropped back to SMW and to have fought in Britain.

But that was never going to happen.

The really big fights are hard to make.

There's lots of people that don't realise what goes on behind the scenes.

They only view it as though one guy ducked the other guy.

When in reality, it's much more complicated, with rival networks and promoters arguing over the upside of the PPV, and wanting future options etc.

 

Complete BS!

He missed out on EVERY meaningful fight?


He beat Hopkins with a fractured hand, who didn't go on to lose for a further 12 years.

He moved up to fight Toney, who was classed as one of the greatest fighters in the world.

After he'd beaten Toney, he only had a handful of fights at SMW, because he couldn't unify.

http://youtu.be/4TPjvtASn0c


Here's more information regarding Liles.

http://www.scaredstiffreviews.com/?p=414


I've also read links from 1995, where Stanley Levin said he wouldn't turn Roy over to King to fight Benn, because he wanted future options at the time.


So in 96, Roy moved up to LHW.

He crushed Hill and Griffin, easily beat Johnson, as well as beating Gonzalez, Hall, Woods, and then Tarver after moving back from HW.

The guys he missed were an old Nunn, Roch, and obviously Dariusz M.

Again, Roy refused to go to Germany, saying "I don't think a knockout would be enough over there!" and Dariusz M was happy to keep defending the WBO and wouldn't go the U.S.


Roy then went up to HW at 34, and easily beat Ruiz, who whether you liked him or not, was a decent HW.

When other HW fights couldn't be made, he then went back to LHW and fought Tarver, Johnson and Calzaghe etc.


I'll put Roy's resume up against any other fighter from the same era.


He's got a good resume.


So what were all the meaningful fights he missed?


Why was it all smoke and mirrors?

 

Pp I'm a jones fan, but why are we acting like Roy didn't lose until Tarver. Montell Griffin doesn't count?

 

:good

These guys are jokers.

It happens all the time on here.

They won't give Roy credit for dominating the likes of Ruiz, yet they'll criticise him for missing a guy like Steve Collins.

It makes me laugh.


I had the same debate just a few months ago.

The guy who I was debating with, wasn't impressed with the knockouts of Griffin and Hill etc.

Yet wanted to know why Roy ducked Collins.


But if a guy's not impressed with the knockout of Griffin, then would he have been impressed if Roy had beaten Collins?

It's ridiculous!


If a guy doesn't rate wins over Toney, Tarver and Ruiz etc, then why would he give a f*ck that he missed an old Nunn and Roch etc?

Because had Roy beaten Nunn, Collins and Roch etc, it's obvious that they wouldn't have given him the credit for it.


It's just an excuse to hate.

 

It doesn't really count does it?

Officially, yes.

But Griffin was awarded the win, after getting up off the floor.

Although I don't know what Roy was thinking, and he definitely deserved to be disqualified.

But Roy was on the verge of beating him.

 

Probably because of what happened in the rematch. The first fight was tough, and he was having problems. I remember watching it live, which didn't happen a lot for me back then. I watched all the HBO cards on TSN replays here in Canada. I was pretty excited before hand, and they had Jones with Ali in the pre fight piece. He did start to come on and I remember feeling Jones could pull it out before the DQ. I remember waking up the next day hoping it was all a bad dream, it wasn't.

But when he crushed him in the rematch it wiped away everything to me that happened in the first fight.

 

Golota was closer to the verge of beating Bowe twice and of beating Grant too.