Was Roy a great boxer or just one of the fastest reflex to step in the ring?

Was Roy Jones Jr a great boxer????? Ummm...... YES CLOSE THREAD

 

Most of the post in this thread are idiotic.... "Roy Jones didn't work hard" "Roy Jones didn't believe in the power of a jab" What the ****??? He got knocked out again at the age of 40, it was bound to happen again. He had many great fundamental boxing skills, if you don't see that you are blind....

His work off the ropes in his prime was fundamentally perfect, you don't learn that leaping left hook by playing basketball.

Quit being IDIOTS

 

He was a great fighter, but not a boxer. He definitely used his reflexes and speed to his advantage. But like you said, once those went away, he had nothing

 

Overnight? He has been on the decline for the past 6 years or so. The fight with Green only showed he's become as shot as it gets.

Some good points here. But to say Jones didn't have good boxing skills is laughable. Thread Stealer explained it very well a few posts back, you can't do the things Jones did in his prime without possessing good boxing skills. I see your point about his athletic abilites being his primary advantage, but his boxing skills were pretty good also. Maybe not "amazing", but surely good.

 

Perhaps we have different opinions on what boxing skill is, when your athletic ability is proven in a boxing ring and not a basketball court, that translates into boxing skill to me... May not be textbook, but it is certainly boxing skill.

Roy in his prime rewrote textbook boxing and made it his own, to say that was just pure athletic ability is ******ed, there was boxing genius, ring generalship, footwork, ect.......

His ability to move out of the way of punches without putting his hands up was a boxing skill in my opinion, ask Micheal Jordan or Carl Lewis to do that.

 

Guess you never watched waht Toney hit him with !! I love it when a fighter loses the experts come out the wood work ..China chin the man fought naturally bigger men his whole career ..

 

Its amazing to me to even watch Jones against Ruiz, he was a way different fighter even then to what he is now.

 

:rofl:rofl:roflat the highlighted!

.....btw, if you really have torretz syndrome, I'm not making fun or light on the matter.......but the way you worded that was really funny!


.......and I certainly would not want to get in the way of you and that jackhammer jab of yours!:good

 

I know ..He looked invincible in that fight but hey no one beats father time except Hopkins but what does Jones have to be ashamed of ..How many fighters even think of fighting 50 pro fights ..Im still a fan it just sucks to see the legends fade ..I do wish he went back to being a commentator .

 

Skills aren't always "by the book", some fighters are unorthodox and not the most fundamental but make it work in their own way. Calzaghe, for instance, had ugly and technically incorrect punching technique, but made it work for him. He slapped more and turned over only some of his punches, due in part to injury prone hands, but made it work for him. Vitali throws quite a bit of arm shots but is more concerned with keeping distance and letting the damage build up, he's naturally heavy handed so his arm shots will do the damage over time with enough accumulation.

Jones broke fundamental rules and fought in an unorthodox way that probably benefited him when in his prime. Opponents are not used to fighting guys like that. As he got older, it hurt Jones, because he didn't do enough to make up for the fundamental errors as he got older. Ali, who likewise had bad habits, did a great job at succeeding as he got older. Of course, it helped because he had a terrific chin and a seemingly inhuman ability to absorb body shots.

Some fighters do things against the fundamental rules as a trap. For instance, Mayweather often leaves his left hand low. But he's often hoping that his opponent will jab and then he can counter with the right over the jab. Likewise, he'll go in a straight line back to the ropes, but he's probably trying to get guys to waste shots because he's good at avoiding these flurries on the ropes.

Jones often did the low left hand thing as well, also hoping to counter jabs. He used to be very effective at countering jabs (especially southpaw jabs) with left hooks. But as he got older and he slowed down, I still saw him doing this, and he paid for it. He had his left hand down when Glen Johnson KO'd him. Roy tried to roll with the shot, but it hit him on the temple, and he was out cold.

Jones was known as a gym rat, obviously he worked very hard. I don't know what exactly went on in his training camps, but it's very possible that he worked very hard on his own unorthodox style and not enough on the technically correct ways to do things, which caught up with him. Maybe he was just too comfortable in his own ways.

In regards to reflexes, like most things that is both an innate gift and something you work hard to improve. You practice enough and certain moves become reflexive. You see your opponent move his arm in a certain motion and instinctively move your body or whatever because you know what shot is coming.

 

Jones had unnatural physical, God given gifts, that he made work for him in a boxing ring.

Anyone that knew about the fundamentals of boxing, knew that once Jones youth was gone, he'd be in real trouble attempting to do in the ring, the things he did in his reflexive prime.

Jones was in his physical prime when he beat Hopkins and Toney, its no shock to anyone that he never faced anyone as good as those two past his physical prime until he faced Calzaghe and got completely embarrassed.

Yeah I know, he lost to Tarver and Johnson before Calzaghe.......my point is that Jones made certain not to test his skills as he was going up in weight and losing some of his quickness, against a better caliber fighter.

The Calzaghe and Hopkins fights should have been made much sooner.....before Jones losses to Tarver, but imo did'nt happen because Jones was not confident that he could beat them.

.......yeah, its a different story now........
....now that he's been KTFO a few times, he's not so protective of his record, and not quite so afraid to take on someone in a fight he may well lose.

Now that he's well past his physical best is when he does want to make money fights......

To late Roy.......too bad you did'nt take advantage of your physical prime by trying to make better matchups instead of fighting county and city workers.

 

I hate it too, I think it is stupid though to say Roy didn't have boxing skill just because it wasn't textbook. It was just a different kind of boxing skill.:yep

 

Sorry but I don't agree here buddy..... Before his very last SMW fight he went in the ring and called out all of the best in that weight, some were offered their biggest paydays to fight him.... Benn, Collins, and Liles were some mentioned.

You might forget that not alot of fighters wanted a piece of prime Roy. Then he moved up to lightheavy, and wasn't that careful about who he fought, because he quickly became the man to beat in that weight.

 

No cigar my friend.......its no secret that Jones during his prime was always backed by HBO......but even they got tired of his shenanigans and cherry picking that they too started critiqueing his choice of opposition and financial demands to fight the likes of policemen and sanitiation workers.


I'm not taking away from the fact that Jones was a great fighter, but sorry.....Jones had a nice following back then.
He was even backed by the boxing media as being unbelievably gifted.......
A fighter with that type of backing, can make any fight he so pleased....but it was his greed, his ego, and imo his fear to lose, that kept him from making the fights that people would have cared about.......its just that simple, and I know you dont agree (I can respect that)......but thats all I have to say on the matter.