Jones vs Brannon

[robertzimmerman]

Excellent posts really good insight this is a great informal conversation can i ask you and also anyone else who may have an answer for me why is it in nearly all roy jones fights somebody`s shouting EDWARD EDWARD its baffled me for years i dont think its coincidence.Maybe edward was a camera man i`ve no idea.

Hi mate, thanks for the reply.

With regards to someone shouting out, I've honestly never noticed that. Ha!

I'd also like an answer.

[FightFit]

Hi mate, thanks for the reply.

With regards to someone shouting out, I've honestly never noticed that. Ha!

I'd also like an answer.

Its true nearly all his fights someone shouts it out i`ve only noticed it because i watch his fights all the time so after a while im like who`s EDWARD then i watch another fight and again EDWARD EDWARD

[Sugar Adam Ali]

You have got to be kidding

No im not kidding,, ask irondan,,, but to his credit he did say he was wrong, but come on now, how can you say he would ever be p4p material, but to each his own

[Sugar Adam Ali]

If you would like a proper debate, you can have one. But from reading your posts, it doesn't seem that you're being fair and objective.

Roy wasn't the cherry picker that you and lots of others make him out to be. Boxing is a business, and there's lots of politics involved. To my knowledge he only ducked/dismissed two fighters. They were Nunn and Collins.

He relinquished his WBC strap at 175, when Nunn was mandatory. But he did that in the hope of fighting at HW. He talked to Holyfield about a potential fight, but he wasn't interested. So Roy signed to fight Buster Douglas. But Roy's Father blocked it at the last minute.

Collins was dismissed to move up to 175. Then nearly three years later, Collins came out retirement to challenge Roy, after Roy had beaten Ricky Frazier. (The Cop, who somehow became a mandatory) Collins actually got in the ring during Roy's post fight interview. But DeBella and HBO didn't want to make the fight. They wanted Roy to instead fight a unification fight against Reggie Johnson. They wanted Collins to fight Joe Calzaghe, with the winner potentially fighting Roy if he won. But Collins got injured in training and had to retire.

At 160, Roy missed the opportunity to fight great fights because his Father wrapped him in cotton wool. He was having Roy fight nobodies for peanuts and wouldn't unleash him. Roy's career only took off when he split with his Father in 1992, and signed a deal with HBO. While Toney, McCallum, Nunn, Jackson and Gerald McClellan were all facing each other, Roy had been fighting the likes of Lester Yardbrough. By the time he'd beaten Hopkins, he was looking for big fights, and was outgrowing the division at 24 going on 25.

At 168, fights with Benn and Liles were very hard to make. Because according to Roy, Greg Fritz, and the Levin Brothers who handled Roy, King wanted future options on Roy. King didn't like Stanley Levin, and Levin wouldn't deal with him. So Roy relinquished the IBF title to go to 175.

Eubank is also on record as saying that he never chased the big fights at 168, and he was content to defend his WBO belt against mandatory challengers. He was content to fight on his ITV and Sky contracts. He also recently said in an interview, that it would have been suicide fighting Roy in his prime.

At 175, the only guy he missed was Dariusz M. That fight became impossible to make. Roy refused to fight in Germany, and Dariusz and his promoter didn't seem interested in fighting in the U.S. Roy's advisor Brad Jacobs, met with HBOs' Kerry Davis, but nothing could be arranged. Davis came up with the idea of Dariusz fighting on a double header with Roy in the U.S. but it was turned down flat. From that point on, talks just fizzled out.

After beating Julio Gonzalez, Roy again spoke to Evander Holyfield late in 2001, just prior to his final fight against Ruiz. They spoke of a potential fight for 2002, if Evander won back the belt. But the fight was a draw, so Roy pulled out of negotiations and remained at 175 for a little longer.

After Roy had fought Glen Kelly on a double bill with Hopkins, there was talk of them having a rematch at a catchweight. I'm sure you've seen the famous argument on HBO? Hopkins incredibly wanted more money at the start of the interview, but later backed down and wanted 50/50. But Roy had already beaten him, he'd got one eye on moving up to HW, and he'd have had to have moved down in weight for the fight. So there was no way that Roy was going to accept a 50/50 split. He then fought Clinton Woods in his final mandatory at 175. HBO had wanted Roy to cancel the Woods fight, to instead fight Jirov at CW. But they were only prepared to pay Roy an additional $500,000 on top of what he was getting for Woods. So Roy turned it down. He then beat Woods, and got the opportunity to fight Ruiz.

So again, Roy wasn't the cherry picker that he's made out to be.

If circumstances had been different, he could have fought Benn, Liles, Dariusz, a rematch with Hopkins and Evander Holyfield.

Everything I've mentioned can be backed up. It's all factual.

He wasn't content to just fight easy mandatories. If he had've done, he'd never have fought Ruiz at 34, after 50 fights, and then came back for Tarver.

All you do is make excuses for roy,, ie "it was his dad" "collins needed to fight Calzaghe first" etc


The fact remains,, for all his talent roy competed in the least amount of big fights.
Once he beat toney, he coasted on his guarantee money on regular HBO..

Obviously there is alot of politics to boxing and some fights dont get made, but when you have a laundry list of great opponents yet you never fight them, it shows a pattern..

Ali somehow found a way to fight frazier norton, foreman,

SRL somehow found a way to fight benitez, duran, hearns, hagler

holyfield somehow found a way to fight foreman, bowe, tyson, lewis

oscar somehow found a way to fight pernel, tito, ike, shane, vargas, floyd, hopkins, sturm, manny

manny somehow found a way to fight barrera, morales, jmm, hatton, cotto

floyd somehow found a way to fight corrales, castillo, oscar, hatton, cotto, canelo

roy has toney, and then took a decade to fight ruiz and tarver,, and it wasnt till his HBO contract expired that took those big fights in 2003. Even the head of HBO at the time, i think it was ross greenburg said that they made a mistake signing roy to that deal because they thought he would take more risks, but he didnt, he milked it vs frazier, tate, brannon, vinny paz, mccallum, etc

All the other fighters in roy's position took on huge fights and event type ppv. Roy clearly didnt want that..

G-man, collins, eubanks,benn, watson, liles, nunn, michlewski all were around, yet roy never got to fight them,, even though roy was the money man in the division, and it does matter who you are, if your the money guy of a division everyone wants to fight you, ie chavez jr, floyd, oscar, tyson.. When you bring huge paydays for the opponent nobody is going to turn you down..

I dont expect roy to fight every guy i named, but 2 or 3 over ten years would have been fine, but there is no excuse to continually fight the vinny paz, eric lucas, frazier, etc..

Roy had good wins over the likes of hill, gonzalez, woods, but those are about the same as when floyd fights a guerrero, ortiz, etc.. Good wins vs ranked guys, but not exactly top level career defining victories...

And like i said earlier, the hopkins fight looks good in hindsight, but at the time it was signed, hopkins was viewed as not much of a threat, and would be an easy win over an espn FNF caliber fighter,, it wasnt till years later when that fight looked like a great win..

There just is no excuse to fight vinny paz, tate, byrd, lucas, brannon, frazier etc over and over again for a decade, when there was huge money to be made fighting other guys...

You can make all the excuses you want, but the records dont lie, Roy took soft touches from toney fight till his HBO contract expired and then in 03 fought ruiz and tarver..

And the holyfield fight was offered, and roy backed out, and took the tarver fight instead,, Read holyfield's book by his lawyer that did all his deals, its a great read, and talks at length about holyfield-roy fight, but roy backed out and toney took his spot..

And for the record i have no idea why they say edward during his fights, i honestly never noticed it before, but now i will be looking at it..

p.s. Im one of the biggest roy jones fans ever, i have his cd, his shoes, his greatest hits dvd from walmart, i met him in person in st louis at the maidana-alexander fight, he is one of my all time favorites, but i cant lie to myself and think that one of my faves took all the big fights. Its clear as day that roy wasnt trying to land big fights after he made his name in the toney fight.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

I would just like to say the michlewski fight and hopkins rematch were not going to happen, and it wasnt roy's fault..

hopkins priced himself out, and michlewski was never leaving germany, so i dont really hold that against roy..

[robertzimmerman]

Its true nearly all his fights someone shouts it out i`ve only noticed it because i watch his fights all the time so after a while im like who`s EDWARD then i watch another fight and again EDWARD EDWARD

Ha! That's crazy!

I'll have a look.

[robertzimmerman]

I would just like to say the michlewski fight and hopkins rematch were not going to happen, and it wasnt roy's fault..

hopkins priced himself out, and michlewski was never leaving germany, so i dont really hold that against roy..

Quite right.

These are valid reasons. But when I've also given valid reasons as to why certain fights weren't made, you've said that I've made excuses.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Quite right.

These are valid reasons. But when I've also given valid reasons as to why certain fights weren't made, you've said that I've made excuses.

yeah, but at the end of the day, roy's resume and challengers doesnt add up to the talent he had..

just look at oscar, tito, shane. srl, ali, holyfield, floyd, manny and compare to roy's resume,, Roy had probably the most talent out of all of them, yet doesnt have the great wins except for a select few...

There is always a reason why a fight didnt get made, but when you have over a half a dozen big fights that were never made, it kinda shows a pattern..

like i said earlier, i dont expect roy to fight everyone i listed but 2 or 3 would have been par for the course...

collins had already beaten eubanks so a fight with him should have been a no brainer,, same with G-man and Liles, they were domestic rivals, plus amateur nemesis of roy,, those fights would have been alot bigger than a byrd or tate or brannon fight...
i just wish roy had taken alittle more risk, i dont mind having a few soft touches, but when for a decade you have nothing but soft touches and your biggest name is a 42 year old, jr mid at 175, it doesnt speak well for your resume

[robertzimmerman]

Sugar Adam Ali,

All you do is make excuses for roy,, ie "it was his dad" "collins needed to fight Calzaghe first" etc

Not at all. Go and look at who Roy fought when he was with Big Roy. He was going nowhere. Fred Levin got Roy title fight opportunities and then told Big Roy about them. Big Roy then said he'd talk to Roy and then get back to him. Then a few days later, he told Levin that Roy wasn't interested. But he'd never even informed Roy in the first place. Big Roy held him back, and wouldn't let him fight guys like Julian Jackson. Look into it.

Roy dismissed Collins in 1996, but in 1999, Lou DeBella didn't want to make the fight. Collins had been retired, he'd never fought at 175, and the bigger fight to make was one with Reggie Johnson.

The fact remains,, for all his talent roy competed in the least amount of big fights.Once he beat toney, he coasted on his guarantee money on regular HBO..

He did have big fights. Not in terms of big PPV fights, but he had big fights. Reggie Johnson, Hill, Griffin II, Ruiz and Tarver were big fights.

Obviously there is alot of politics to boxing and some fights dont get made, but when you have a laundry list of great opponents yet you never fight them, it shows a pattern..

Well, you can go and do your own research if you don't believe what I've wrote. Everything I said is factual. He missed guys like Benn and Eubank etc, but tried to fight Dariusz M and Holyfield. That tells you that he wasn't content to fight the Kelly's of the world. If he was content to do that, he wouldn't have gone up to HW at 34, and then gone back and fought Tarver.

Ali somehow found a way to fight frazier norton, foreman,

SRL somehow found a way to fight benitez, duran, hearns, hagler

holyfield somehow found a way to fight foreman, bowe, tyson, lewis

oscar somehow found a way to fight pernel, tito, ike, shane, vargas, floyd, hopkins, sturm, manny

manny somehow found a way to fight barrera, morales, jmm, hatton, cotto

floyd somehow found a way to fight corrales, castillo, oscar, hatton, cotto, canelo

That's right, but again, you can't do like for like comparisons. Everybody's circumstances are different.

Roy fought Hopkins, Toney, Hill, Griffin, Ruiz and Tarver. If Eubank didn't want to fight him, then how could that have been made? If The Levin's couldn't deal with King, and King wanted future options, how could Benn and Liles fights have been made? You've said yourself that he shouldn't be held responsible for not having fought Dariusz M and Hopkins in a rematch. So that's five fights right there.

There's always gaps on fighters records. People always question why SRL didn't fight Pryor and McCallum, even if they were valid reasons. But SRL was lucky in a way. He was in a great era, with great rivals, and the fights could be made. Roy didn't get that same opportunity. Fights against Collins and Benn etc, would have been great. But they wouldn't have been career defining fights.

roy has toney, and then took a decade to fight ruiz and tarver,, and it wasnt till his HBO contract expired that took those big fights in 2003. Even the head of HBO at the time, i think it was ross greenburg said that they made a mistake signing roy to that deal because they thought he would take more risks, but he didnt, he milked it vs frazier, tate, brannon, vinny paz, mccallum, etc

That's not entirely true. He was more than happy to face his mandatory's for big money, but again, Kerry Davis tried desperately hard to get the Dariusz M fight, and Roy wanted Holyfield and Hopkins in 2002, if the split was right. He was still with HBO for the Ruiz, Tarver and Johnson fights. Again, if he'd have been content to only face his second rate mandatories, he'd never have fought Ruiz and Tarver. They were big risks at that stage of his career. How did he milk it against Del Valle, Johnson, Hill, Griffin and Harding etc? They were all good fighters.

All the other fighters in roy's position took on huge fights and event type ppv. Roy clearly didnt want that..

Again, he went up to HW at 34, after having 50 fights. I didn't see a queue of other 175 fighters looking to go up and fight Ruiz. That was 10 years ago. How many other former MW champs have gone and fought a top 5 HW? It's easy for people to bash Ruiz and say he wasn't great. But if it was that easy, then more fighters would have attempted it.

I'll put Roy's resume up against anyone from the same era, around the same weight classes. Roy's actually got a very good resume. But because most of his fights were so easy, he doesn't get the credit he deserves.

G-man, collins, eubanks,benn, watson, liles, nunn, michlewski all were around, yet roy never got to fight them,, even though roy was the money man in the division, and it does matter who you are, if your the money guy of a division everyone wants to fight you, ie chavez jr, floyd, oscar, tyson.. When you bring huge paydays for the opponent nobody is going to turn you down..

You're throwing the same names around. Have a look at that list. Toney and Hopkins were better than most of those guys, and Roy fought them. So what does that tell you?

A fight with Gerald McClellan was never really viable. Again, Roy had done nothing at 160 until he'd fought Hopkins. He then moved up to 168, and Gerald remained at 160 until he fought Benn.

Eubank didn't want it.

We've discussed Benn and Liles.

How was Watson viable?

I think he should have fought Collins and Nunn, but the Collins fight wasn't a huge fight that he missed. It wouldn't have been big outside of Britain. Collins had the WBO belt that wasn't respected then, and he'd lost early fights to McCallum, Johnson and Kalambay. His claim to fame was beating faded versions of Benn and Eubank. It wouldn't have done anything for Roy's legacy. If he doesn't get credit for knocking out Hill with a devastating body shot, and Griffin with a lead uppercut, then I can't see how he'd have got any credit for beating a guy like Collins.

We've discussed Dariusz M.

I dont expect roy to fight every guy i named, but 2 or 3 over ten years would have been fine, but there is no excuse to continually fight the vinny paz, eric lucas, frazier, etc..

They couldn't be made for the reasons I've given.

He didn't continually fight those guys mentioned. They were sandwiched in between good fights. Fights against Paz and Lucas were only 2 of 7 fights at 168. When he couldn't unify against Benn and Liles he moved up to 175. Frazier was the fight before he unified against Reggie Johnson at 175.

Roy had good wins over the likes of hill, gonzalez, woods, but those are about the same as when floyd fights a guerrero, ortiz, etc.. Good wins vs ranked guys, but not exactly top level career defining victories...

The Hill victory was great, because he still had a bit left, and nobody had ever done that to him. I agree that the others were similar to Floyd's. But you've got this idea that Floyd had all these huge defining fights, and he didn't.

And like i said earlier, the hopkins fight looks good in hindsight, but at the time it was signed, hopkins was viewed as not much of a threat, and would be an easy win over an espn FNF caliber fighter,, it wasnt till years later when that fight looked like a great win..

I agree. At the time it wasn't seen as a huge win.

There just is no excuse to fight vinny paz, tate, byrd, lucas, brannon, frazier etc over and over again for a decade, when there was huge money to be made fighting other guys...

We're just going around in circles. Again, those fights were sandwiched in between very good/great wins, and he tried to make other fights, that didn't come off for the reasons I've given.

Tell me who he could have fought instead?

Don't just reel of names, tell me how they were viable, apart from Collins and Nunn.

You can make all the excuses you want, but the records dont lie, Roy took soft touches from toney fight till his HBO contract expired and then in 03 fought ruiz and tarver..

They're not excuses. If you can make allowances for Dariusz M and a Hopkins rematch not being made, why can't you do the same for the others? Again, everything I've written can be backed up. He didn't just take on soft touches. That's nonsense.

And the holyfield fight was offered, and roy backed out, and took the tarver fight instead,, Read holyfield's book by his lawyer that did all his deals, its a great read, and talks at length about holyfield-roy fight, but roy backed out and toney took his spot..

Roy wanted Holyfield in 97, and then in 2002. After he'd fought Ruiz, he was only interested in having mega money fights at HW. He wanted Tyson for huge money, and turned down a $10m contract to fight Sanders.

p.s. Im one of the biggest roy jones fans ever, i have his cd, his shoes, his greatest hits dvd from walmart, i met him in person in st louis at the maidana-alexander fight, he is one of my all time favorites, but i cant lie to myself and think that one of my faves took all the big fights. Its clear as day that roy wasnt trying to land big fights after he made his name in the toney fight.

I feel bad that your such a huge fan, when you don't seem to realise that he wasn't just content to fight easy fights.

Without sounding like a broken record, we know that he fought Ruiz and Tarver in his mid 30's, and he was open to fighting a rematch with Hopkins, and he also wanted fights against Dariusz M and Tyson.

So he did want the big fights.

You can't accuse a guy who started out at 154 pounds, of having no interest in big fights, when he went up to HW at 34. It's ridiculous.

[billeau2]

If you would like a proper debate, you can have one. But from reading your posts, it doesn't seem that you're being fair and objective.

Roy wasn't the cherry picker that you and lots of others make him out to be. Boxing is a business, and there's lots of politics involved. To my knowledge he only ducked/dismissed two fighters. They were Nunn and Collins.

He relinquished his WBC strap at 175, when Nunn was mandatory. But he did that in the hope of fighting at HW. He talked to Holyfield about a potential fight, but he wasn't interested. So Roy signed to fight Buster Douglas. But Roy's Father blocked it at the last minute.

Collins was dismissed to move up to 175. Then nearly three years later, Collins came out retirement to challenge Roy, after Roy had beaten Ricky Frazier. (The Cop, who somehow became a mandatory) Collins actually got in the ring during Roy's post fight interview. But DeBella and HBO didn't want to make the fight. They wanted Roy to instead fight a unification fight against Reggie Johnson. They wanted Collins to fight Joe Calzaghe, with the winner potentially fighting Roy if he won. But Collins got injured in training and had to retire.

At 160, Roy missed the opportunity to fight great fights because his Father wrapped him in cotton wool. He was having Roy fight nobodies for peanuts and wouldn't unleash him. Roy's career only took off when he split with his Father in 1992, and signed a deal with HBO. While Toney, McCallum, Nunn, Jackson and Gerald McClellan were all facing each other, Roy had been fighting the likes of Lester Yardbrough. By the time he'd beaten Hopkins, he was looking for big fights, and was outgrowing the division at 24 going on 25.

At 168, fights with Benn and Liles were very hard to make. Because according to Roy, Greg Fritz, and the Levin Brothers who handled Roy, King wanted future options on Roy. King didn't like Stanley Levin, and Levin wouldn't deal with him. So Roy relinquished the IBF title to go to 175.

Eubank is also on record as saying that he never chased the big fights at 168, and he was content to defend his WBO belt against mandatory challengers. He was content to fight on his ITV and Sky contracts. He also recently said in an interview, that it would have been suicide fighting Roy in his prime.

At 175, the only guy he missed was Dariusz M. That fight became impossible to make. Roy refused to fight in Germany, and Dariusz and his promoter didn't seem interested in fighting in the U.S. Roy's advisor Brad Jacobs, met with HBOs' Kerry Davis, but nothing could be arranged. Davis came up with the idea of Dariusz fighting on a double header with Roy in the U.S. but it was turned down flat. From that point on, talks just fizzled out.

After beating Julio Gonzalez, Roy again spoke to Evander Holyfield late in 2001, just prior to his final fight against Ruiz. They spoke of a potential fight for 2002, if Evander won back the belt. But the fight was a draw, so Roy pulled out of negotiations and remained at 175 for a little longer.

After Roy had fought Glen Kelly on a double bill with Hopkins, there was talk of them having a rematch at a catchweight. I'm sure you've seen the famous argument on HBO? Hopkins incredibly wanted more money at the start of the interview, but later backed down and wanted 50/50. But Roy had already beaten him, he'd got one eye on moving up to HW, and he'd have had to have moved down in weight for the fight. So there was no way that Roy was going to accept a 50/50 split. He then fought Clinton Woods in his final mandatory at 175. HBO had wanted Roy to cancel the Woods fight, to instead fight Jirov at CW. But they were only prepared to pay Roy an additional $500,000 on top of what he was getting for Woods. So Roy turned it down. He then beat Woods, and got the opportunity to fight Ruiz.

So again, Roy wasn't the cherry picker that he's made out to be.

If circumstances had been different, he could have fought Benn, Liles, Dariusz, a rematch with Hopkins and Evander Holyfield.

Everything I've mentioned can be backed up. It's all factual.

He wasn't content to just fight easy mandatories. If he had've done, he'd never have fought Ruiz at 34, after 50 fights, and then came back for Tarver.

One thing can be said for Jones: There was a time when he beat some top elite guys and he made it look easy with Toney. For whatever reason later in his career he gave clinics but when he fought the best he showed incredible skills.