Two question on FUNDAMENTALS, with reference to ROY JONES JR

I dont think you have to have a dominant jab to have solid fundamentals.
Jones was not strictly a counterpuncher either, in fact he came forward in many of his fights which produced many stoppages, Virgil Hill, Montell Griffin rematch, Bryant Brannon, Richard Hall, etc etc. He like, Mayweather, preferred to lead with power punches, because his speed compensated for the lack of a snapping, directive jab. The jab is used to control pace, distance, and setup shots. Jones speed of hand and foot, allowed him to accomplish this with lead power shots.
Mike Tyson didnt possess a great jab, but he was fundementally sound.

If a fighter is successful in a particular style, they are fundamentally sound to that style. There is no text book definition of a fighter, only fighting styles in my opinion. Roy Jones was a fundamentally sound boxer/puncher.

 

A lot of Roy Jones' game is built around pure speed. I never liked that half-a$$ed defense he sported, always leaving his left hand and low and open for big right hand counters. Roy Jones was a great talent in his prime years, especially after beating James Toney, but he didn't tighten up his fundamentals as his natural talents diminished.

Jones was getting caught with shots he really shouldn't have been caught with because his ego and arrogance couldn't allow himself to put his hands in proper guard position. Griffin, Tarver, and Glen Johnson landed shots they really had no business landing if Jones was on his game. The boxing world found out that Roy couldn't really take a punch and got knocked out in embarrasing fashion. The boxing world found out that Ali could actually take a punch after losing a lot of his leg and hand speed in his exile. Ali's toughness is greatly contributed to his greatness considering he had to stand and take shots that the younger Ali wouldn't have been hit with. Speed kills in both ways. When it goes, it hurts you as a fighter a lot quicker than expected. With Roy Jones, it practically killed the end of his career.

 

I've forgotten more about boxing than you'll ever know, son..:good

 

Well the problem with the stylistic choices that RJJ, Hamed, Ali made is that you end up paying dearly for it in your career as time goes on. You get slower, and you realize that backing up with your hands down is something you just can't do anymore.

 

Popkins, if what we are getting at is whether or not the fundamentals of boxing are exclusively concerned with one punch, then no, so i agree with you there. If it is Roy Jones as a technician we're discussing then, again no, i don't think he was a great technician at all. But he was a great fighter, you can't knock that level of effectiveness and dominance of opponents, regardless of their caliber. Anyway, his punches were effective, plenty of them in fact, hooks, uppercuts, crosses. They were just not technically proficient mostly, i mean that as individual tools. But what is more detrimental to his standing as a technician is that cohesively he was not the technical masterpiece, meaning his style of fighting when it came together was not that of a technician.

I'm not knocking him though, when it comes to Roy Jones vs most people, i pick Roy Jones, the man was a physical specimen in his prime.

 

Thats pretty rude as LH31 knows more about the mechanics of boxing than most on here, even if I don't agree with much of his views on Big Daddy Bowe

 

I think a lot of people forget one thing that really made RJJ as good as he was. He was an incredible feinter/drawer, a skill that is definitely not as prominent today as it used to be. He was a great ring general in that sense, and like Hamed used a combination of physical talents and clowning to fuel those skills.

 

As for Roy Jones fundamentals, I agree and disagree, his style works for him, he looks to implement a style to use his super human speed (and it was super human). He keeps his chin in the air as a trap - you try and hit him he uses his fast reactions to slip and smashes you in the head. If you didn't hit him he smashed you in the head. It worked for him, but that isn't the fundamentals you'd look to teach most fighters. When he got old and his reactions became normal he needed to tuck his chin and he didn't thinking he could still get away with that.

So technically there are weaknesses in his style, but in terms of his skill level he mastered certain things such as footwork, recoil, stepping into a punch, punch technique, shto slipping that other supposedly fundamentaly sound fighters did not master to the same degree. Then their are higher level physically tricky things he would do such as his combination throwing

 

Actually in his prime Tyson had an excellent jab. When he stopped using it is when he started going down hill as a fighter. He actually outjabbed Tony Tucker in their fight, an impressive feat.

 

I'd agree and disagree with you on the technical aspects Teeto. While allot of what he did was not textbook it was still highly skillful. I think of allot of what he does is put down to physical ability, which to a degree is true, but athleticism alone it was not, someone like Jermaine Taylor may have been as good an athlete as Roy as he could do 48second 400ms if what I hear is true. Obviously boxing athleticism is a little different but the point stands

 

Like i say, my post's not a knock at him, because for effectiveness he's one of the best i've seen on film, i just don't think he's a technician. Even when i observe his footwork, his mobility is tremendous, but i don't see his footwork as being technically great. Hopkins' footwork is boxing 101 to a tee on an unreal level, that is technical footwork at it's peak. Jones is mobile, i do differentiate between the two. I know it might be getting annoying that i keep saying i'm not trying to detract from Roy here, but you always get some clowns who think my comments are trying to take from Roy, that's not the case, because of course Roy beat Bernard, and i rate that win. It annoys me when people say they don't rate that win for Roy because Hopkins was 'green'. Anyway, the name superman was befitting imo, because Roy's physical attributes were hard to believe unless you saw it, one of the most effective fighters of al time.

 

Just saw this now PP, i replied above so i think my response explains my stance.

I'm not going to go all out and say Jones didn't know **** about boxing from a technical standpoint, what i'm saying is i don;t think he should be presented in debates about great technicians. And yes, he was highly skillful, i've never doubted that, never would.