The chin of Roy Jones?

This is a test of a fighter---how well are they at absorbing punishment? Jones was never asked to absorb punches to get wins over the opponents he was matched up against. Once he went to the higher weights, it was many more distance bouts. And all of a sudden getting hit more in 1 bout than he had in the previous 8 bouts added up. So he certainly did not hold up well at all in the wear and tear department.

And just who really thinks Tarver was ever any sort of a hitter anyway? So is asking Jones to absorb punches from a guy like Tarver way too big of a mountain? Let alone Johnson---who was stopped by Hopkins at 160===one of Bernards rare ko's.

So asking Jones to absorb punches from Johnson way too big of a task? Johnson and Tarver didn't score many ko's against top fighters. Actually, they did not score knockdowns against top fighters. So the answer is a poor chin and poor punch resistance. But an opponent has to be good enough to bring out those traits & so many of those early opponents did not have that capability.

 

I think the evidence suggests that his chin was fine for the most part before he hit the bricks horrendously in 2004 (worth noting that all aspects of his game fell apart drastically then, not just his chin). Not tungsten, but not glass either.

Jones was 35 and had been boxing professionally for fifteen years by that point. He'd spent more than a decade of that run considered as a tip-top pound for pound fighter, had lost only once via a DQ and had won titles from Middle to Heavy. I don't care how elusive or slick you are - you can't do that with a glass chin. Was always difficult to hit Jones with clean, big shots, particularly with more than one at a time, but even he wasn't good enough to go all through that period without taking a few worthwhile clobbers. I suspect his chin would have given out if subjected to serious and sustained punishment against bigger hitters, but that doesn't mean it was a tender chin per se.

I think his chin was serviceable overall, and probably bang average in comparison to his stronger areas such as speed, movement, fitness, elusiveness and punching power, all of which were top drawer. But if it was as bad as some claim, it wouldn't have taken until 2004 for someone to take advantage of it.

 

There are far more examples of fighter punch resistance deteriorating late on in a career, then there are fighters who were able to "hide" a glass chin for 15 years across multiple weight divisions in fights against over a dozen world titlists.

If Roy is indeed in category B, he pretty much broke the mould. The much more likely scenario is that his chin was decent at least for most of his career, before becoming weak later on.