Which win was more impressive? Roy Jones vs John Ruiz or Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito?

Ruiz was a real heavyweight. Far from the greatest champ, but still a heavyweight.

Margarita was a welterweight.

 

In hindsight its Pac vs Margarito. Even without his manos de piedra, Margarito was like 165 in the ring vs Pac's 148 and he destroyed his orbital bone.

Imagine saying in 2008 after Marquez that Pac who is already an atg at this point will, in the next 2 years, jump up to lightweight win a title by stoppage, retire oscar at 147, move down to 140 to brutally ko hatton, move back to welte to tko cotto, beat clottey and finish that run up by destroying Margarito at 150 with a 17 lbs weight difference on fight night...
One of the most runs ever.

Ruiz was slow and boring. Dont know how holyfield lost to him but I put that on the same level as Pac stopping Diaz.

 

Pac. Ruiz was awful. Not much power & tailor made for Roy. The Ref did Roy a favour & didn't allow his hugging either. There's a reason Jones was matched against him at heavyweight rather than anyone else.

 

Jones beating Ruiz.

 

Ruiz is under rated, as boring as his style may have been. He wouldn’t have been floating around the top as long as he was if he was “horrible.”

With that said, Margarito is a superior fighter, and a better win.

 

Margarito very nearly won JMW title vs Santos. Also Margarito was on his way to doing damage, even in the rematch to Cotto if it wasn't for the eye injury Pacquiao caused.

 

I don't really hold Jones' heavyweight fight in very high regard. Jay Nady deserves most of the credit for Jones' win over Ruiz. I'm all for a ref not allowing clinching. Nady didn't allow standing too close to each other. Jones immediately running away from heavyweight did him no favors in hindsight either. It just highlighted what it was, a handpicked winnable opponent and a ref that would run interference as a backup plan.
Toney did it better.

 

Let’s not get silly.

Once Roy had broken his nose and hit him with repeated flush right hands, it made him hesitant to press and pressure Roy.

 

Roy holds a very good win over Ruiz.

Roy doesn’t get much credit though, because Ruiz wasn’t Lennox, he had an ugly style, and it was a boring an uneventful fight.

However, Manny moving up and fighting Marg aggressively was amazing.

I didn’t agree with the vacant belt being fought at a C-W, but the win was fantastic.

The height, reach and strength that Manny gave up was huge.