Who is the greater figther: RJJ or Thomas Hearns

Prime for prime, RJJ was the better fighter IMO.

 

If you are going to denigrate Jones Jr's win over Toney for Toney being weight-drained (despite Toney's last fight before Jones was a KO win over Prince Charles Williams 4 months earlier where he wasn't said to be weight-drained), then Hearns's win over Roberto Duran must be denigrated also.

Duran was a natural lightweight who first won the world lightweight title in 1972. He fought Hearns at light-middleweight in 1984 the day before his 34th birthday, and coming off a defeat to Hagler.

You see, any win can be belittled if you try hard enough. Toney was p4p#2 in Nov 1994. He was the IBF supermiddleweight champion and was unbeaten in 46 fights. Two men got into the ring that night, Jones was electrifying, Jones won. Simple as that.

 

So resume is THE only thing that matters then? Well we may as well stop watching boxing then and just read about the fights. You don't watch fights to form opinions on the fighters' abilities? A very strange view of boxing. You must place De La Hoya above guys like Pryor, Mayweather and Jones Jr pound-for-pound then.

 

He beat Benitez VERY clearly, only a Boxrec warrior who takes a look at the MD on the scorecards would think otherwise. You've made a complete ass of yourself continuously in this thread.

 

You're confusing potential and ability. Judah had great potential, but never the ability to fulfill it.

 

I never said that. I don´t rate the mentioned guys at all. I only rate 25 fighters as atgs and none of them makes it.

 

Depends what your definition of ability is.

 

deffo mate :good

like i said i tend to have my head up my ass when it comes to hearns topics, i was totally obsessed with him as a kid.

 

The difference is Duran won a belt at lmw shortly before and went 15 rounds with a prime Hagler in a higher division. That negates every argument you possibly could bring up diminishing this win.

And no it is not as simple, open your eyes and you could clearly see that Toney wasn´t near his best. It´s so obvious even a blind man could see it.

 

Jones never proved he was superior to DM at lhw. They never fought.

To quote me:

 

Ability is what the fighter showed in the ring and what he was capable of doing. Jones showed his ability against guys like Toney and Hopkins while dominating a lot of lesser opposition. He had the ability to beat a lot more top fighters than he did, and proved it.

Judah proved he had the ability to look good for a few rounds and flame out against top comp. Everything must be takern into account when discussing ability, otherwise a guy like Jones would not be rated nearly as high, as his in-ring performance and dominance was a large part of his legend.

 

I see your point, but I still think you're underestimating RJJ. imho he was the greatest middleweight who ever lived, even though he was only there for a very short time.

I'm a HUGE MAB and EM fan, but I would say that RJJ is a step above them, and maybe PBF is a level higher as well. I would also say that MAB and EM are at least a half-step above Hearns. Again just imho. It's debatable.

 

I would have to go for RJJ, his overall skill level i.e. athleticism, timing, hand speed, defense was better than Tommy Hearns although both are legends.

 

Jones Jr

 

Toney won a belt just as shortly before his fight with Jones as Duran did before Hagler. Which is about a year.

Toney also fought non-title fights repeatedly at or around 175 during his time as 168lb. champion.