James Toney: Nunn, R. Johnson, McCallum x2, Barkley, C. Williams, Jirov, Holyfield Roy Jones, Jr: Castro, Hopkins, Maligna, Toney, Pazienza, McCallum, Griffin, Hill, R. Johnson, Woods, Ruiz, Tarver, Trinidad Bernard Hopkins: John David Jackson, G. Johnson, Brown, Trinidad, De la Hoya, Tarver, Wright, Pavlik This is of course taking in age of fighters/opponents, weight, etc. into account.
RJJ by a landslide in terms of resume, IMO. Let's not forget he's a 4 weight world champ (one title coming at HW) and was robbed of a gold in the olympics as well.
I think Hopkins resume pushes it very close. Undefeated Trinidad, undefeated Pavlik, Tarver who beat RJJ, Winky who took Taylor to a draw, and first man to ever trample over Johnson.
i picked hopkins but i also think youre kinda shortchanging toney by not listing some of the other people he fought when he was around 168, he was a beast, names like tim littles, that prince guy, doug dewitt etc were all good fighters that toney beat, often times destroyed
Don't get me wrong, I'm a massive B-Hop fan but when you compare them like for like I think RJJ stands out as he's done it at different weights consistently for a long time when he was in his prime.
Jones ~ he beat a James Toney, dominated actually, when Toney was considered to be one of the top p4p, dominated John Ruiz at HW for the hw title, defeated Hopkins himself (who was still green at the time but still), defeated Tarver in their first bout. I don't consider Hopkin's win over Trinidad to be that great because he was fighting the smaller man who was not at his best at that weight, the same thing with the Winky Wright and the De La Hoya fights.
But Jones beat Hopkins and he still managed to beat Tarver, even though Tarver beat him 2 additional times
Jones NEVER beat a unified, undisputed, or linear champion in his whole career. That is more damning than anything.
Pavlik brutally knocked out Taylor, something neither Hopkins or Wright could do. Hopkins is just that good.