What went wrong with Roy Jones Jr?

He got old.

 

Fighters like BHop or Toney carried on longer as they had better fundamentals than Roy who relied on his speed and athleticism.

 

the other factor was fighting a better level of competition. that causes the wear and tear factor & something Jones was not very good at.

 

That's one part of it. Hopkins was one helluva freak tho.

 

Exactly this! Same reason why Archie Moore, Roberto Duran and Floyd Mayweather fought into their 40's with success.

 

This. Any one of these reasons or maybe a little of em all .

 

Nothing, he got old. Like we all do.

 

Going back down to LHW after beating Ruiz at HW was one of his biggest mistakes. Plus, he got old. Happens to every fighter.

 

This is a great question! I believe losing the weight so rapidly plus, he was at the age where things started to change.
IMO, after the Ruiz fight he should of did one of three things: One: stay at heavyweight, fight the smaller heavyweights like Byrd, Toney rematch when he came up. The KO losses at heavyweight would not look as bad as it does at light heavy.

Two: take a year off from boxing and lose the weight over time, no weight lifting. Then resume back at light-heavy.

Or three: Fight at Cruiserweight. That would of been great.
Overall he has had a outstanding career. I think most of the hate he gets was the way he carried himself. The whole Mr. Unstoppable thing got on peoples nerves.

In reality, he's a great guy. I meet him at a club one night and he was the nicest guy. He didn't have an entourage, just a buddy he was hanging with. His real personality shows on his interviews after his fighting days are over, when he didn't have to act tough.

 

Agree partly but think some of the feeling is a bit disingenuous to Jones. Clearly he declined sharply after Ruiz. He did win the heavyweight championship in the process though. Schooled Toney and Hopkins, beat the best fighters that he could fight. How padded was Robinson's career? He's generally considered the best welterweight ever, and often the best FIGHTER ever. How many prime, genuinely great welterweights did he beat? I'd argue Leonard's wins against Benitez, Hearns and Duran at least matched Robinson's best wins at welterweight.
Longevity is a big factor in judging overall greatness of a fighter but it isn't the only criteria. Jones' peak wasn't as long as someone like Robinson's but to say he wasn't tested isn't fair. He couldn't just teleport himself to 1982 to fight Hagler, but he beat the world class fighters of his day that he *could* fight, and made it look ridiculously easy in his prime.
Robinson gets a lot of credit for being competitive with guys like Fullmer and Basilio at middleweight, and he should given he was pretty old by then. But, they weren't quite Hagler or Monzon were they? He didn't even fight Hearns or Leonard at welter, if only he'd been tested?

 

Care to expand upon that?

 

Roy did not display the symptoms of weight drained fighters against Tarver and Johnson (he had a lot of time to prepare for Johnson).He was strong and well conditioned.

As I said Roy relied on speed,athleticism and reflexes. With age those attributes slow down.That is what I observed in those fights.Another factor, but to a lesser effect is that Tarver and Johnson were good fighters.

 

People (certainly most) aren't actually claiming he was weight drained. What they are alluding to is different.

 

Technicians always age better than physically gifted, unorthodox fighters and Roy was no different.

The cynic in me wonders if it was coincidence that the BALCO bust coincided with Roy’s fairly drastic physical decline. He sure looked roided up against Ruiz.

Cheers All.

 

Hi JT, Sugar Ray Robinson ended up losing to the likes of Steve Harrington ( twice ) and Memo Ayon.
Ali lost to Leon Spinks and Trevor Berbick. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you keep fighting when you are shot then the losses will come. You’re on it.

I do believe that Tarver had the style to always give Roy trouble as he was a huge southpaw, 175 pounder who could box pretty well and had a bomb in his left hand. Eric Harding was giving Roy a lot of trouble before he tore his biceps and he was also a tall, skilled light heavyweight.

I never thought Roy looked as unbeatable at 175 compared to at 160 and 168.

Cheers Mate