Why did Roy Jones ruin his career the way he did?

Personally I think it was all the jumping around weight classes

Even though he stayed in shape, I reckon he wore out his bodies endurance

I agree with you, he should have stayed at heavy weight. Would have done more for his resume than moving back down. But the flip side is we dont know the money that was on offer.

 

better drugs testing killed his career, its a shame if your a fanboy, but for the sport of boxing it is a great thing.

 

his chin

 

Roy wanted Tarver..would have fought him if he didn't lose to Harding the 1st time. He only went up to HW for the history and payday. He only wanted Tyson for the payday. There was no demand for Chris Byrd or James Toney fights. Rahman or Oquendo? Seriously? He went down because of Tarver's trash talk and his own foolishness in taking off the weight being easy. It was ok to go down, but he went down too quickly. Could have cut it slowly, getting a strap at crusier along the way and been down by 04.

 

No demand in PPV for any of those fights. He had a deal with HBO, but he wanted big money fights, hence why he went up in the first place. The only novelty was seeing Roy fight a man much much bigger. The novelty wore off after he outclassed a top 5 guy like Ruiz. The only big money fight at HW was Lewis, and neither he nor Lewis wanted that fight.

 

I am not so sure him staying at HW would have been the best idea... He was too small to really compete with the Klits and Lewis.. His mandatory was Corrie Sanders, which I would pick Roy to beat IF he could stand the first few rounds when Corrie went on a rampage...

Also, he did beat Tarver, it didn't look good but he did... That win is very underrated because Roy didn't look good, but he did edge out a close but clear win IMO..

That win made history a bit too, but no one really thinks of it.. I am not a great boxing historian, but I can only name two fighters that dropped from HW and won the LHW championship in his next fight, Roy being one of them..

That for me is on par with moving up to heavyweight and winning a title....

I have always said Roy should have retired after Tarver 1, the dropping in weight clearly hurt his body, and he was getting older anyways.. For a fighter with Roy's kind of style, 33 is pretty old... Had he retired then, and didn't get stupid and disqualified against Griffin, he would have been 50-0.. Titles from Mw to Hw and then back down to LHW before calling it quits... damn impressive.

He is doing nothing now but making people forget how good he once was... I almost got used to it myself, but watched a few old fights recently and remembered how good he really was.

 

They were airing the Byrd/Oquendo fight because Byrd was the IBF champ. No one wants to see Byrd and Roy not take chances for 12 rounds. HBO wanted the Tarver fight because of their history and Tarver's big mouth. He was the consensus #2 LHW when Roy went up.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu2DivG5Uao[/ame]

@ 44:11

Tarver or Ruiz is next.

 

your always a good read chief :deal

you don't talk much on the steroids issue though, do you try and sweep it under the carpet?

 

I guess you are right, Sanders never was the mandatory.. but that was the talk of Roy's next HW fight..

I still stand by him dropping and beating Tarver and then retiring... Like I said, that win is underrated, and I rate it as his 3rd best win, and also there is a little history there in being able to do that.

 

mega ego. he wanted to be treated like a god and let everythng come to him. X shouldve get less money than him, dariusz should have come to the us. calzaghe shouldve fought for 30 %. at the end, when he wasn't king anymore and his ego was away he started fighting for legacy against trinidad, X rematch, sadly to late. shame. now he has so many losses and sad legacy. had he not had this big ego and fought X for 50/50 and made stronger askings for bigger challlenges, he would've fought and beat eubank, benn, dm....everybody.

 

I am not too sure about the roids...

I know Roy failed a drug test, I know he admitted to taking Andro, which was banned... I know that whole drug test thing was not done like it should have been as well, too much question, standard procedure wasn't followed..

Is Roy telling the truth? maybe, maybe not..

Regardless, roids are a bigger part of the last 30 years of boxing that most want to admit.. Though definitely not an excuse, but we have to realize there are much more, (some we consider greats possibly) that were just never tested, or caught..

Is it still wrong? yes, but I remember that when we point our fingers at the "cheaters"

I certainly don't think it was responsible for how good Roy was, many proven roid users looked nothing like Roy Jones.:yep