I was comparing Roy`s fame in the UK to Hagler and co. Leonard was a starin the uk because his fight with Hagler was shown the day after it took place on free TV in the UK and also beat British fighter Dave boy Green on free Brit TV, Hagler destroyed Minter live on British TV and Tony Sibson, Minter was a household name in the UK at the time Haglder beat him, Hearns beat Andries on free TV in the UK but that fight got far less attention than Hagler and Ray Leonard`s fights.
Nobody ever knocked Toney out, but yes Roy should have been more agressive, it was pretty tame affair.
I don`t think he should have held his feet but simply feinted Toney out of position so he could land more instead of moving so much.
Jones in his prime was like something from another planet. He was so freakishly fast James Toney, master counterpuncher, couldnt react fast enough to counter Jones with success. If Toney could of put up a fight and made it close there could be a rematch and a rivalry. As it was, it ended up being a blowout, one and done. The guy who put up a decent account of himself was Eddie Futch trained Montell Griffin, and Jones had figured him out before he got himself DQd. The rematch was a blowout in 1 round. I think if Jones was around in another era where guys fought more regularly you would of seen him with a ridiculous amount of wins and title defenses (along with more losses later in his career). But how could he have gotten to the Tyson/leonard/ODLH/Mayweather stardom? Its a good question. The most buzz i remember Jones getting was his fight with Ruiz. I dont know how well he would of done, but maybe an earlier and sustained campaign at heavyweight would of done it. Maybe his speed is enough to get by some of the guys at the time to make a run, Rahman, Byrd, Obed Sullivan etc.
Jesus and what was I doing Mark? Talk about stating the bleeding obvious. If Jones had been fighting pro the same time as the 1980s fab 4...he would have made it the fab 5.. and been a household name just as they were win lose or draw...fyi...jones got a lot of publicity and coverage amongst the mainstream uk sports media during the 1988 olympics in seoul.....also fyi....jones had a tv doc made about him and shown on prime time itv1 circa 1999 not a bad achievement given boxing had been dead on terrestrial tv for the best part of 4 years at that point (save a few shea neary fights and a robin reid grandstand highlight of his title win)....
Leonard got more attention in the UK when winning his gold medal than Roy did winning his controversial silver.
You make it sound like getting Toney out of position is some easy thing to do. Roy has said for a long time that Toney was the most skilled fighter he'd ever faced and he'd struggled to penitrate his defense which is why he had to resort to taunting him with a chicken dance to get him out of position. Toney was a great, great fighter
Roy Jones would have never outboxed James Toney if he stood in front of him and tried feinting him out of position. That's why he was more or less on his bike for the fight. It was the absolute correct strategy to deploy, especially considering it was widely known that Toney had to drop 40 pounds in 2 weeks leading up to the fight
