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Very good article over all, but there are a few glaring errors in your reporting. (Not the one's you see)
#1. Lou De Valle did not legitimately knock down Roy Jones Jr. Roy's back foot clearly slipped. To describe it as a "nasty left hand" is simply dishonest. (This is part true, but his foot slipped when he got whacked hard and went down hard)
#2. Eubanks and Benn's careers were for the most part played out by the time Roy arrived on the scene at 168, and... they fought exclusively in England, had little to no name recognition state side, and would have been nearly impossible to make a deal with due to their bloated ego's. (Benn fought in the U.S. or on U.S. TV (including NBC and ABC multiple times) often and was extremely well known to U.S. boxing fans).
#3. James Toney would have never been a viable rematch as he wouldn't have been able to make any reasonably contracted weight.
#4. Its clearly documented that Roy Jones Jr. suffered from Shane Mosley syndrome throughout a large part of his career. Nobody would fight him. They either demanded outlandish sums of money for what would have undoubtedly been a loss, or simply avoided the matter all together in favor of making their own meaningless title defenses (Dariusz Michalczewski) (It's not clearly documented. Roy just said it was true whenever he'd go on a bum streak. This is part myth as Jones often made unreal demands himself).
Its really bad that you bring up Dariusz who was about as willing to unify titles as Sven Ottke was, actual less so, since Ottke actually managed to pick up two straps. (Dariusz unified three belts...what are you talking about?)
Michael Nunn was also not a viable option. A fight with Roy would not be marketable after his loss to James Toney, especially since Roy took apart Toney, and Nunn had severely diminished as a force in the division. (He was a mandatory twice and FAR more marketable than Frazier, Grant or many other trash fights)
At one time HBO attempted to take over match making for Roy Jones jr only discover what Roy had been claiming all long was true. Nobody was willing to fight him for any reasonable sum of money. (Actually, Seth Abraham gave a lengthy interview at Maxboxing with Bernard Fernandez a while back where he says the opposite and noted HBO largely created a monster by overpaying for no-name fights and then dealing with a Roy who didn't see why he should take tougher ones)
Granted you did mention some of this in passing at the end of the article, it is not given enough emphasis as timing is everything when talking about what fights are made. (Yes it is because this is measuered against all-time...not why didn't a TON of fights not happen because I want you to be more than you were big guy).
#1. Lou De Valle did not legitimately knock down Roy Jones Jr. Roy's back foot clearly slipped. To describe it as a "nasty left hand" is simply dishonest. (This is part true, but his foot slipped when he got whacked hard and went down hard)
#2. Eubanks and Benn's careers were for the most part played out by the time Roy arrived on the scene at 168, and... they fought exclusively in England, had little to no name recognition state side, and would have been nearly impossible to make a deal with due to their bloated ego's. (Benn fought in the U.S. or on U.S. TV (including NBC and ABC multiple times) often and was extremely well known to U.S. boxing fans).
#3. James Toney would have never been a viable rematch as he wouldn't have been able to make any reasonably contracted weight.
#4. Its clearly documented that Roy Jones Jr. suffered from Shane Mosley syndrome throughout a large part of his career. Nobody would fight him. They either demanded outlandish sums of money for what would have undoubtedly been a loss, or simply avoided the matter all together in favor of making their own meaningless title defenses (Dariusz Michalczewski) (It's not clearly documented. Roy just said it was true whenever he'd go on a bum streak. This is part myth as Jones often made unreal demands himself).
Its really bad that you bring up Dariusz who was about as willing to unify titles as Sven Ottke was, actual less so, since Ottke actually managed to pick up two straps. (Dariusz unified three belts...what are you talking about?)
Michael Nunn was also not a viable option. A fight with Roy would not be marketable after his loss to James Toney, especially since Roy took apart Toney, and Nunn had severely diminished as a force in the division. (He was a mandatory twice and FAR more marketable than Frazier, Grant or many other trash fights)
At one time HBO attempted to take over match making for Roy Jones jr only discover what Roy had been claiming all long was true. Nobody was willing to fight him for any reasonable sum of money. (Actually, Seth Abraham gave a lengthy interview at Maxboxing with Bernard Fernandez a while back where he says the opposite and noted HBO largely created a monster by overpaying for no-name fights and then dealing with a Roy who didn't see why he should take tougher ones)
Granted you did mention some of this in passing at the end of the article, it is not given enough emphasis as timing is everything when talking about what fights are made. (Yes it is because this is measuered against all-time...not why didn't a TON of fights not happen because I want you to be more than you were big guy).
http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php...4141&cat=boxer
To claim that Roy was avoiding Dariusz, you need to prove that Dariusz wasn't blatantly avoiding Roy, which he was.
It can be argued that Roy was making outlandish money demands of his own, but most of the time they were quite reasonable given the situation.
Lets take Bernard Hopkins for example. 50-50 was a completely unreasonable demand from Hopkins. 60-40 was perfectly reasonable from Roy.
I am firmly of the belief that Roy was often used as a pawn in boosting a fighters image, and negotiating other winnable fights, much like Shane Mosley is right now.
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