Does Roy Jones deserve to be considered an elite ATG?

[IronDanHamza]

Well I'd certainly agree with the adjective "unavailable" in some of those. Calzaghe was a Middleweight until he stepped up specifically to fight an old Hopkins and Roy. Roy ofcourse stepped up from Middleweight to Lightheavy in 96' when Calzaghe was an invisible newly crowned British local champ. Benn and Eubank could have happened. Benn said he wanted to fight him even though he was "frightened" of him lol. Those two fights and Michalczewski would have been a good addition to his record.

Ofcourse at the time no one even gave any of these guys a shot at beating Roy.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not claiming he ducked all those fighters.

I'm just saying if those fights were to come off and won, ontop of his resume he already has now. Just look how unbelievably stacked his resume would be.

You can say that about a lot of fighters. But not many fighters have two prime ATG's on their resume. Well, atleast not in the last few decades.

[SCtrojansbaby]

Well I'd certainly agree with the adjective "unavailable" in some of those. Calzaghe was a Middleweight until he stepped up specifically to fight an old Hopkins and Roy. Roy ofcourse stepped up from Middleweight to Lightheavy in 96' when Calzaghe was an invisible newly crowned British local champ. Benn and Eubank could have happened. Benn said he wanted to fight him even though he was "frightened" of him lol. Those two fights and Michalczewski would have been a good addition to his record.

Ofcourse at the time no one even gave any of these guys a shot at beating Roy.

When? The only time it was really a possibility was if Eubank decided to not fight Collins again which of course Eubank had to do because Collins had taken his belt in a close decision fight

[Hitman Hodgson]

No.... it was important for him, in matching what Bob Fitzsimmons did, by going BACK DOWN to LHW after capturing a HW title, and RECAPTURING the LHW title.

Do you realize how impressive that is?

Successfully dropping back down to LHW and winning the title, and against the #1 rated LHW, which he was, not Darius.

Only beating Lennox would of been bigger, not losing to him.

I don't necessarily disagree. With hindsight though the move back down is what has made his place in history so debatable. Its what probably caused him to lose to the likes of Tarver, and Johnson. It could just be a case of Jones being one of those fighters that aged over night. Maybe I'm just being selfish but I wanted to see Jones at HW a fight or 2 more.

[NChristo]

Wasn't Vitali his Mandatory and likely be his next fight at Heavy before even thinking about Lennox ?, wouldn't want too watch that really.

[New England]

What about Jones vs Gerald McClellan at 168lbs?

Would RJJ rank higher had he stayed at HW and fought Lewis (and probably lose) and retired in stead of going back down to LHW?

g man beat him in the amateurs

he's an odd case, though, the g man. very unique fighter.

tons of reach. killer punch in either hand. good jab. solid chin.
no reason to think he beats roy jones, though.

i'd pick some of the greats to beat him at 160. just look at the resume at 160 specifically. there aren't a ton of fights.

to say he simply outmatches anybody who has ever boxed at 160 lbs based on that body of work is unfair.

at 160 lbs? you'd have to pick monzon, robinson, greb. just think of what they did at the weight and what roy didnt. maybe he could have, but he didnt. they did.


now at 168 you're talking about something entirely different. roy's the best h2h 168 pounder ever in my eyes. it's a light weight class

and at 175?
the lights could go out. there have been some total monsters at 175. lots of guys that can knock out senseless. it's an old and storied weight class.


he's a rough style
the question mark is obviously the chin. he doesnt have a gritty performance where he had to walk through real bombs and extended rounds of punishment. to be fair he was generally too fast to get hit even as a full 175 pounder

[SCtrojansbaby]

The reason Roy didn't have that "gutty performance' wasn't because no one could hit him it was because no one could stand up to Roy's power.

EXAMPLE:



I don't see anyway a guy like Bob Foster would stand up to Roy's power. Spinks wouldn't get KO but generally speed based fighter struggle badly when they face someone who is faster and as fast as Spinks was Roy was significantly faster. I think it close for a while but Roy's speed takes over and he outboxes Spinks

[McGrain]

I would say yes he does.

I have the same problems with his peak wins many others do - Hopkins, bit green, Toney, horribly weight-drained, Ruiz...Ruiz - but still, p4p, at the weights he met them at, I don't think he's that far behind an elite great like Joe Louis. Of course, he had the ability to weight-jump and crucially showed nothing like the dominance, so he doesn't rank anything like as high, but he's got some very nice wins there.

He looks absolutely extraordinary on film. That's key. Sometimes Jones looked literally other-worldly against ranked men. He looked like film of his fights were spliced together with earthbound fighters, that he comes from a different world where gravity is less prevalent. That sounds hyperbolic, but IMO it is literally true.

Between 1993 and 2003 (Ruiz), Jones looked, for the most part, untouchable, against a generally high class of opponent, annexing titles at four different weight divisions.

Yes, he's elite.

[res]

The reason Roy didn't have that "gutty performance' wasn't because no one could hit him it was because no one could stand up to Roy's power.

EXAMPLE:



I don't see anyway a guy like Bob Foster would stand up to Roy's power. Spinks wouldn't get KO but generally speed based fighter struggle badly when they face someone who is faster and as fast as Spinks was Roy was significantly faster. I think it close for a while but Roy's speed takes over and he outboxes Spinks

Spinks would probably try to outspeed him until he saw he couldn't, then I think he eventually goes inside to try to land with power. Spinks preferred to fight on the outside but he was a decent inside fighter, and much better than Jones who tried to avoid it at all costs. Hopkins was able to land on Jones on the inside (the only parts of the fight where he managed to best Roy)

All of the people who ever koed Foster fought with regularity at the Heavyweight level. I think the bigger issue is Jones withstanding Foster's power.

[res]

I would say yes he does.

I have the same problems with his peak wins many others do - Hopkins, bit green, Toney, horribly weight-drained, Ruiz...Ruiz - but still, p4p, at the weights he met them at, I don't think he's that far behind an elite great like Joe Louis. Of course, he had the ability to weight-jump and crucially showed nothing like the dominance, so he doesn't rank anything like as high, but he's got some very nice wins there.

He looks absolutely extraordinary on film. That's key. Sometimes Jones looked literally other-worldly against ranked men. He looked like film of his fights were spliced together with earthbound fighters, that he comes from a different world where gravity is less prevalent. That sounds hyperbolic, but IMO it is literally true.

Between 1993 and 2003 (Ruiz), Jones looked, for the most part, untouchable, against a generally high class of opponent, annexing titles at four different weight divisions.

Yes, he's elite.

Well the Toney argument has some basis (Even though Jones struggled sometimes to make weight as well) but I don't buy the Hopkins argument at all. As I said before, it seems to be based on circular logic. The only indication that we have that Hopkins was green is the fact that he lost to Roy. But one can't use the win to de-legitimate itself. Hopkins was the number 1 ranked contender in the world fighting for the vacant title (against Roy) and he didn't lose another fight after that for 10 years.

[Achille]

Hes was one of the best I've ever seen.

"You Damn Right!"