Was Roy Jones a great defensive fighter?

Coundt have said it better!

 

Is it nuthugging-time again? Get off my dick and grow up finally.

 

Stalker.

 

After that sentence I stopped reading your post. I assume you're celebrating and boozed/wasted already. Have a nice party. :hi:

 

Roy Jones was never a great defensive fighter .. Simply because he never had to be, no fghter had the skill to put him under any pressure defensively .. We are talking about 'orthodox defensive abililty here', Roy Jones's whole skill set was based on reflexes, on this count he was one of the greatest fighters of all time, his punch picking and speed were also amoung the greatest of all time .. This cannot be called into question .. In his 90s prime he was as dominant as anyone in history, he hardly lost a round .... When he got older and his reflexes slowed, it exposed him to shots he wouldnt ordinarely worry about which was why he got knocked out .. He was such an offensively minded fighter because of his reflexes that he never needed to worry about what was coming back, he could see the shots a milisecond after his opponent threw it ....

If Jones retired after the Ruiz fight he'd be held in the highest esteem, but because he carried on and let the ageing process weather him, there are question marks for some people ..

For me Roy Jones, along with Pernell Whitaker and Floyd are the greatest fighters since Ray Leonard and are all time greats that live with the big guns of history, but Roy like Pernell like Floyd have their doubters, doubters who always seem to prefer 'hard working' fighters like Pacquiao, Tzsyu, Chavez etc .. But that comes down to fight styles and what an individual prefers ......

 

Your missing the whole spectrum of defense. Didnt guys like Whitaker also start to get hit with shots they didnt oridinarily get hit with when they got older and their reflexes started to slow?
Putting yourself in a position to not get hit is also part of defense, its not just ducking or blocking. As I said in a previous post, Jones led with power shots and counter shots. His ability to wind up in a spot where he could avoid counterpunches or punches from his opponent, is certainly a part of defense.

 

I'd agree with you fully .. But you cant classify Jones in his prime as in any way a defensive fighter, it was very hard to distinguish what was 'defensive' with Jones as when he backed off it was usually to start an attacking move .. The only thing you can judge on Jones, is that when his reflexes slowed, he didnt have a clue on what to do defensively, he took shots that average guys wouldnt take, just because he had never had to be in positions to take these shots .... You cannot pigeon hole Jones as a great defensive fighter because usually great defensive fighters are like Hopkins, but Hopkins doesnt have an offence until hes done damage from right hand defensive counters ..... Roy Jones is one of the greatest, most fluid fighters of all time, but i wouldnt call him 'A great defensive fighter', i'd call Pernell Whitaker a 'Great Defensive Fighter' like Floyd, but not Jones, Jones was way more than this ....

 

Yeh he did have some awesome gifts but I was underplaying them abit to focus on his technical skills, bad example really. I dont he was much harder to hit than Jones Jr but i think his defence was more varied and he could slip inside and move at long range etc... I honestly beleive Zapata to be the best technically defensive genius

 

Based on reflexes though, not on great defensive ability like Pernell or Floyd .... Roy Jones was an attacking fighter, his whole gameplan was based on an offensive arsenal backed up by great reflexes, he never had to think of defence like other fighters had to .. I'd also add that Jones had great positional sense, it was very rare that he'd be caught out of position in his prime

 

Yes but thats still a part of defense that went away as he got older. Tyson was an attacking fighter too, but he had a tremendous ability to slip punches by moving his head and upper body while attacking. That also went away when he started to slip.
Defense was just a bigger part of the fighters games of a Pernell or Floyd, probably why they are and were not as exciting.

 

Yeah, he was clinching, but he also slipped shots. Look at rd 15. But "making a man miss by an inch and slide inside and counter" is more or less unknown amongst HWs long past theor prime. Give me one example.

It doesn't have to Pep-like too be great technically. Ali had his back to the ropes, made Foreman miss all over the place and countered effectively. That isn't text book, but it takes great skill. Otherwise everyone would do it. No one else has.

Yes, he took some body blows, but almost all of them was away from the crucial areas because he just blocked too well.

Sure. But you don't beat a prime Foreman if you can't take a punch. Sooner or later he's gonna land on you no matter what.

I said "leaned in". Big difference. Not holding - in-fighting technique. But, yes, these are pretty basic techniques, but I mentioned them in reference to how he improved. These were basic techniques that he shunned before FOTC.

 

even in his prime though you could see the traces of some bad habits that one just knew he would get caught from..putting his back flat on the ropes and just hand cuffing his hands to his face..he had great reflexes which made him hard to hit..and also his offense helped him..in many ways his best defense really was his offense..having said that, i think he had some flaws, that did hurt him at times even in his prime, the first montel griffin fight being a example.

 

Whatch from 4:00 in this clip when Ali is going for the KO. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yli8w78mSKE&feature=related[/ame]

He is staying in the pocket more or less the whole round, and except for the low hands I think he looks very good from a technical standpoint. For me this strenghten my belief that Ali had skills that he rarely used because he was a safety first fighter (mostlly), but he had them none the less.

 

I'll give you two. Joe Louis in the Marciano bout and Evander Holyfield against Valuev.

I do not consider Ali to have great skill. By great skill I mean that he was not a technician like McCallum or Arguello or even Ray Leonard was.

It is commonplace now for boxing figures to confuse skill with athleticism and skill with strategy. There's a difference -particularly between the former. The latter is tougher to pick up on but there is a difference.

Ali a technician? This will always be an oxymoron in my book at least.

Ali more or less gave Foreman the body. He held his hands high to protect his head.

Ali had a great chin, no one disputes that. Shots bounced off of him throughout the 70s that would not have been so numerous had he had a good command of the fundamentals. He did not.

This is not insulting Ali. In a way, it actually enhances his legacy... becuase he did not have to develop great textbook skills to dominate like he did.

So, leaning in as opposed to leaning out signifies improvement. Okay. That's fine. But this only helps my thesis which states that Ali was not a technician.