Hall of Fame Report: Morrison, Lennox Lewis, and Johnson

[MatteoAlderson]

I'm not saying that I think Spinks or Foster would have surely beaten Jones, but Spinks had enough pop to take Jones out with one punch as did Bob Foster and it would have been hard for anyone to have outboxed Jones, but Lou DeValle said "Jones is like a turtle,and you have to get him when he comes out of the shell," and I think Foster and Spinks might have gotten to him. All they needed was one shot, remember the Marvin Johnson fight? Spinks ended it with one punch. Now SPinks did look horrible with Eddie Davis, but that was one fight, Jones looked bad against Montell Griffin in the first fight for about six rounds. If you don't think Michael Spinks, the only Light-Heavy to move to win the linear heavyweight title and not some bogus belt (Toney & Jones) would have a legitamate chance of beating Jones then you are one of those Jones fans that thought he was going to beat Calzaghe a couple of weeks ago and have trouble dealing with reality when it comes to Roy Jones.

[beez721]

"Tommy Morrison" and "Hall of Fame" mentioned in the same sentence?

he was a hall of fame puncher,,,but too bad for him he had horrible defense and a suspect chin

[v.cassiusali@ya]

tommy's biggest and greatest fight was with ruddock. that was a classic of a fight. i thought it was ruddock all over but tommy turned the fight around to ko ruddock. great fight.

[CJRock]

I heard from one guy who went that Lennox was an ******* who only signed autographs when the cameras were on and he turned down a couple of kids. Not sure how true it is

Absolute bullcrap I've seen Lennox still surrounded by kids signing autographs while they were taking down the ring aafter a fight card Lennox is a Gent
LENNOX!!

[La_Vibora]

lennox lewis has always been a class act. marvin johnson was a serious scrapper. back then they had him, matthew saad muhammad, leon spinks, eddie mustafah muhammad, yequiz lopez (i know i misspelled his name) and james scott from new jersey penitiarary, i believe; those were some great fighters fighters back then. any of them would be champion today. of yeah, let me not forget dwight braxton...
i remember one story on johnson i read, he didn't take a shower during training camp for a fight, which lasted 6 weeks, to make himself mean. I wish i was at the hall of fame to ask him about that..

You mention Yaqui Lopez but no mention of Víctor Galindez? He was one of my favorites to watch fight, its a shame he had that accident while he was in his prime. One fight I have been dying to rewatch is Marvin's rematch against Mathew Saad Muhammed back in 79, I was rooting for Marvin to win, but despite Marvin controlling the fight, Muhammed battled back to win. I need to look for that fight.

As for James "Great" Scott, is there any other big time fighters that anyone can think of that actually fought professionally while in prison? I know Eddie (Gregory) Mustafa Muhammed said he was scared while fighting in that Rahway State Prison. btw I wonder what ever happened to great scott? Someone told me that he got out of prison about 5 years ago, but I haven't heard anything about him.

[La_Vibora]

I'm not saying that I think Spinks or Foster would have surely beaten Jones, but Spinks had enough pop to take Jones out with one punch as did Bob Foster and it would have been hard for anyone to have outboxed Jones, but Lou DeValle said "Jones is like a turtle,and you have to get him when he comes out of the shell," and I think Foster and Spinks might have gotten to him. All they needed was one shot, remember the Marvin Johnson fight? Spinks ended it with one punch. Now SPinks did look horrible with Eddie Davis, but that was one fight, Jones looked bad against Montell Griffin in the first fight for about six rounds. If you don't think Michael Spinks, the only Light-Heavy to move to win the linear heavyweight title and not some bogus belt (Toney & Jones) would have a legitamate chance of beating Jones then you are one of those Jones fans that thought he was going to beat Calzaghe a couple of weeks ago and have trouble dealing with reality when it comes to Roy Jones.

You have to take the motivation factor into consideration as well, Roy certainly would have fought much more focused against great fighters like those than he did against Lou Del Valle. BTW, can the Cincinnati Cobra get some love? I think Ezzard Charles had much more of a chance than Archie Moore who was completely dominated by Charley Burley who was very similar to a prime Roy Jones. Charles on the other hand beat Burley twice, in fact it is said that he came really close to knocking out Burley in the 4th round of their first fight, though it can be argued that Burley took the first fight on short notice. Of course, Roy is naturally the bigger man than Burley(although you could argue that with todays suppliments/sports medicine that Burley and Jones might be the same size if he were around now.)

[robjr]

prime morrison would probly even be better then our present heavyweight champs.

[Roger Yomama]

"The Duke" had the best left hook in the history of boxing!!

Dude, you are a comedy genius. Tell us another

prime morrison would probly even be better then our present heavyweight champs.

True, it's just a shame that is not really much to shout about at the moment.

[MatteoAlderson]

[QUOTE=La_Vibora;4374835]You have to take the motivation factor into consideration as well, Roy certainly would have fought much more focused against great fighters like those than he did against Lou Del Valle. BTW, can the Cincinnati Cobra get some love? I think Ezzard Charles had much more of a chance than Archie Moore who was completely dominated by Charley Burley who was very similar to a prime Roy Jones. Charles on the other hand beat Burley twice, in fact it is said that he came really close to knocking out Burley in the 4th round of their first fight, though it can be argued that Burley took the first fight on short notice. Of course, Roy is naturally the bigger man than Burley(although you could argue that with todays suppliments/sports medicine that Burley and Jones might be the same size if he were around now.)[/QUOTO

Originally in the article I made the cut off date 1958 and the Cincinatti Cobra was finished as a world class contender by then. Pre-1958 I definitely would have put down a number of other fighters that could have beaten Jones and Charles would be at the top of the list probably followed by Greb and then a number of other astute fighers.

[Chase8400]

I'm not saying that I think Spinks or Foster would have surely beaten Jones, but Spinks had enough pop to take Jones out with one punch as did Bob Foster and it would have been hard for anyone to have outboxed Jones, but Lou DeValle said "Jones is like a turtle,and you have to get him when he comes out of the shell," and I think Foster and Spinks might have gotten to him. All they needed was one shot, remember the Marvin Johnson fight? Spinks ended it with one punch. Now SPinks did look horrible with Eddie Davis, but that was one fight, Jones looked bad against Montell Griffin in the first fight for about six rounds. If you don't think Michael Spinks, the only Light-Heavy to move to win the linear heavyweight title and not some bogus belt (Toney & Jones) would have a legitamate chance of beating Jones then you are one of those Jones fans that thought he was going to beat Calzaghe a couple of weeks ago and have trouble dealing with reality when it comes to Roy Jones.

Respectively, Jones was not getting hit back then.(Prime) It was not until the move back down from Heavyweight did he even allow anybody to connect regularly. Sure he might have got hit by a few punches by Spinx, but that does not mean they would have been straight & clean like the the Tarver II punch. Jones' reflexes, especially defensively had slown down tremendously by that time and he most likely would have never got clipped like that 2 fights prior. The obvious sign things changed was noticed in Tarver-Jones I. Had you ever seen Rjj sit back on the ropes and allow a guy to tee off on him before? It just never happened, something changed. I'm not sure if he changed mentally or if he felt tired and was not confident in his endurance anymore, but something was obviously wrong. One thing was certain watching that fight, he was not even the same guy that fought Ruiz @ heavyweight. Jones at his best displayed Wittaker footwork with Ray Robinson accuracy and combinations. Put those together and at one time you have the best to ever lace em' up. I just have a hard time thinking anybody was better at Light Heavyweight.

Note* I did pick Jones to win from a TKO, but I could have been a little stuck in the good old Jones days. I called an early KD and a 6th round TKO. I was not too far off calling that because he did land a great uppercut in that round, it was just that Joe has a granite chin that it did'nt go like I saw it with my biased eyes. Good read & prediction though, props to ya.