Struggling to place Roy Jones Jr...

I don't think there's any real comparison between Tyson and Jones Jr.

Tyson was too intense for his competition (until Douglas).
Jones just seemed to be from a different planet, talent-wise, to his.

 

I don't think he was scared of needles.
You could equally argue that Mayweather chickened out of fighting Pacquio under Pacquiao's usual conditions. Mayweather wanted a lesser Pacquiao.

 

He wanted one without a PEDs. His demands should be standard protocol. To be clear, I wanted Pac to beat him.

 

But his demands were not standard protocol. Hatton and DeLa Hoya and Cotto had fought Pacquiao without those demands. I'm not convinced Mayweather had demanded the same from his previous opponents either. So, I wouldn't say Pacquiao chickened out. He just wanted the usual conditions. It looks like Mayweather changed the conditions, and Pacquiao didn't want that. We have no way or knowing whether Mayweather would have made MORE demands at that time if Pacquiao had agreed on that point. So it's a slanted view to accuse Pacquiao of 'chickening', I think.

Of course, I know Pacquiao was on PEDs, as did Mayweather. I also know Mayweather was on PEDs and somehow gets the 'authorities' to break their own rules on that, which he may well have been doing for years.

 

As far as I know, Mayweather always placed those demands and Pac agreed with them for the actual fight. Just five years too late.

But in either case, why not try to exclude PEDs as a factor in the fight as much as possible? Whether it's a new thing or not, it's still good. There shouldn't really be an issue with that.

 

Me and Unforgiven tend to start our own thread within already existing ones. Sorry.

 

Yeah, that's one way of looking at it. But since both guys were probably (almost certainly) cheats, it's not quite what it seems. Anyway, my contention is only really that it's possibly too complicated (for me) and obscured to accuse Pacquiao point-blank of "chickening out".

No, you're right. I went off on a super-tangent.
Too many threads get derailed like this.

Ah yes, but sometimes we start threads within threads within threads within threads .... that have been started within existing original ones !

 

He didn't avoid tough fights.

It's one of the biggest myths in boxing.

 

He was concerned about his legacy.

Some of the fights were just too difficult to make due to a variety of reasons.

 

Floyd didn't want that type of testing in place for any of his previous opponents.

He didn't even want Manny to be tested until his Father made his accusations.

Manny always agreed to be tested, but he wanted a window. But he was willing to give urine every day, as well as an immediate after fight blood test. Seeing as though there wasn't a shred of evidence and that nobody else had an issue fighting Manny, that should have been sufficient. With the window that Manny wanted, even theoretically, he'd have had less than 2 weeks to cheat out of a 9 week camp. The reason he wanted a window, is because due to a mix up against Morales in 2005, he was required to give blood just prior to the fight which made him weak. Even Morales said he could notice the difference. To my knowledge, those reports from 2005, are still available to view online.

Around 18 months later, Manny agreed to all of Floyd's demands. But instead of making the fight, Floyd then demanded all of the PPV revenue, which told the world that it was never the drug testing that had prevented the fight from taking place earlier.

Shortly afterwards, the Mayweather's appeared in court, and they were forced to apologise and pay a fine.

 

This was really a detour, and without meaning to I derailed the thread. The only thing I will say about it here is that Manny turned down the fight because he didn't want to submit to a test protocol that thousands upon thousands of athletes in other sports submit to. That is suspicious and it's a damn shame.

EDIT: If it's true as Pac says that he agreed to do the blood testing in early 2012 (two years after the fight first fell through http://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Fight:1957156) then it's partly redeeming, but if he had said yes to the demands from the beginning and Floyd then came with further ones until it all fell through, then there could have been little doubt as to where the fault lay. As it is now, Pac backed out of the best fight for decades because of demands that would minimize the likelihood of PEDs. That's what we know. The rest is speculation.

 

This could be another loooooong detour. But earlier in this thread you can read Roy himself say how he refused to go to Germany to fight DM for 5 mil. If going to Germany for 5 million dollars is too difficult, then he and I have different understanding of the word.

Similarly he's on tape after the Tito-Hopkins refusing Hopkins a rematch to a 50-50 split.

In essence, these fights were going to earn him more than any other fights around and they were going to do more for his legacy (especially the DM one), but he refused them because he wanted even better conditions.

I'm not saying he's the only one to blame. DM could have come to the US, and Hopkins (he lost the first fight after all) could have agreed to 40-60 and still made more than from any other fight that was around. So the blame is probably pretty even split. I'm just saying he could have made these fights, made good money and enhanced his legacy. He choose not to.

 

I have him a top 5 at middle H2h, based his speed, unorthodoxy and Offensive brilliance. I favor Monzon and Sugar Ray over him, that's all.

Roy was a total physical freak and the closest thing to Spiderman I've ever seen in real life.

For the record I'd favor Sugar Ray over Spiderman as well.

 

Both guys have huge egos.

Nobody was going to be dictated to.

It's as simple as this:

If Floyd had said before any talks that he wished all of his future opponents to submit to those tests, that would have been very different.

That's not what happened. What happened was that Manny was slandered, and then Floyd demanded that he submitted to testing, even though Floyd had been fighting for 13 years at that point without having an issue. His whole mission to clean up the sport of boxing, only entered his mind after his father had made his accusations.

You say thousands of athletes comply with the tests, yet the circumstances are clearly very different. No other opponent was tested like how Floyd wanted Manny to be tested. Again, none of Floyd's other opponents were tested. Again, nobody else had an issue fighting Manny. There also wasn't a shred of evidence of any wrong doing. What Floyd did, was to issue a demand out of nowhere, after publicly slandering Manny and making repeated derogatory remarks.

Manny has a huge ego, and he wouldn't jump through all Floyd's hoops. In the end, they couldn't reach a compromise.

You can say that Manny blocked the fight because he wouldn't comply with all of Floyd's demands, but then you could also say that Floyd blocked the fight by not being willing to compromise and accept Manny'd demands.

Like I've said, it was all irrelevant anyway. Because again, Floyd's actions after Manny agreed to everything, tell you that even if Manny had complied with Floyd's every wish in the first place, Floyd would have just put up another obstacle. Manny gave him the green light, and then instead of making the fight, he demanded all of the PPV revenue. So again, it was never really about the testing. Otherwise the fight would have happened 3 years earlier than when it did. Floyd clearly didn't want the fight. Look how he carried himself in his interviews etc back then. He just didn't want it. And there was no reason why he couldn't have given Manny his window, which would have included random urine samples up to the day of the fight, along with an immediate after fight blood test.

Anyway, it's been discussed to the death, and we've gone off topic.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

Roy said right from the outset that he had no intentions of going to Germany. The reasons he didn't want to go, were:

He'd been robbed in the Seoul Olympics, Dariusz had feigned injury in order to get Graciano Rochigianni disqualified in their first fight, and at the time, Germany was notorious for horrible decisions, such as some of the wins which were awarded to Sven Ottke.

Why would Roy go to Germany for $5m, when that's what he was getting paid at home?

Darius said he was willing to fight Roy in the U.S. but we know he wasn't being truthful. Kerry Davis of HBO, is on record stating that he, along with Roy's advisors, tried all they could to try and negotiate with Dariusz' promoter, Peter Kohl. Yet he was never willing to sit down to discuss any figures. In the end, Davis faxed across the proposal of staging a double header in the U.S. to introduce Dariusz to a live U.S. audience. But that proposal was turned down flat, without any form of negotiation. After the dust had settled, Dariusz then continued to milk his WBO belt against B and C class opposition, 2 of whom Roy had already easily beaten.

Regarding Hopkins, of course he turned down a 50/50 split. He'd already beaten him, he was the P4P King, he was the unified LHW champ which was in his 3rd weight class, and he'd have had to have gone down in weight for the proposed C-W of 168 pounds.

Mark Taffet of HBO, is on record stating that away from the cameras, they approached Hopkins and offered hima contract of $6m, which also would have included a comeback fight on their network had he have lost. But Hopkins refused, and he then demanded $10m. And when that figure obviously be couldn't met, he then spent a year out of the ring before coming back to fight Morrade Hakkar for around $1.3m. He was all mouth. He told the world that he was desperate for the fight, but when it came down to it, he purposely priced himself out.