Measured Against All Time: Roy Jones Jr.

[!! Shawn]

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).

I slipped on Dariusz. My point is still valid. He unified once, dropped all the belts and went back to making meaningless defenses of the WBO belt.

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.

[!! Shawn]

He then became mando AGAIN for a long time and still got no crack.

And here's some more:

http://www.thesweetscience.com/boxin...-jones-legacy/

In April 2006, when Jones was mulling whether he would fight again, I asked former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham for his thoughts on this enigma wrapped in a riddle.

“His drive was to do things that were of interest to him, but not necessarily to fight the very best middleweights, super middleweights and light heavyweights who were out there,” Abraham responded. “I think Roy’s legacy in the sport absolutely will suffer because he chose not to do everything he could to make himself as great as he might have been.”

Can you give me some time frames to work from? From what date to what date was Nunn his mandatory?

[TheGreatA]

I slipped on Dariusz. My point is still valid. He unified once, dropped all the belts and went back to making meaningless defenses of the WBO belt.

His belts were stripped from him due to unreasonable demands. The WBA demanded him to drop the WBO belt but Dariusz chose to keep it, the IBF forced him to fight his mandatory William Guthrie in 30 days after the Hill fight which was impossible.

Roy Jones then picked up the scrap and somehow became recognized as the "champion".

[Unbiased]

I think when it's all said and done, there will be a debate similar to this about Floyd when his career is over. A great fighter that could have made himself greater but chose not to for whatever the reasons may be. The sad thing is, only the fans will be left to sort out as to why.

[crold1]

I slipped on Dariusz. My point is still valid. He unified once, dropped all the belts and went back to making meaningless defenses of the WBO belt.

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.

1) I didn't claim he avoided him. I said they didn't fight and that hurts both men's standing historically at Light Heavyweight (see Dariusz piece as well). I personally think they avoided each other in their own niche markets.

2) Roy was no pawn. He had the keys to the HBO kingdom and was their poster boy for P4P.

[crold1]

Can you give me some time frames to work from? From what date to what date was Nunn his mandatory?

Nunn was the mando prior to the Buster Douglas charade the first time, then lost to Rocky, then the WBC gave him the belt back and almost were bankrupted later over it. Nunn was elevated to number one again in late 98/early 99 and sat there for close to two years if I recall. Telesco was a WBC exception in place of Nunn. I can dig on lexis-Nexis to find it sometime, but there is a great couple direct quotes on why he didn't want to bother with Nunn and it wasn't marketability for Nunn. It really was "what if Nunn shows up?"

[crold1]

Regarding Gerald McClellan, A fight between them would have been viable for a period of about never.

By the time Roy made himself a viable name with his win of Bernard Hopkins, he was no longer able to make the 160lb limit.

Gerald had bigger fish to fry than jumping up in weight for a non title fight with Roy Jones Jr. the guy with no belt at 168, and only one title win for a vacant belt.

By the time Roy beat Toney and made himself a real name, well lets just say there were 6 months left in Gerald's boxing career.

Eubank's was irrelevant to someone now at a p4p level such as Roy and Benn was a spent fighter.

And yet there was after Hopkins making a title defense. I agree there wasn't a window after Roy moved up but do you really think that fight gets made? How? It took Roy years for Roy to work seriously with King.

And to say Eubank or Benn, selling out arenas while Jones sold out Indian casino bingo halls and people made believe he was a star, were beneath him is funny. Irrelevant to someone at the P4P level? From Toney to McCallum he fought Byrd, Paz, Thornton, Sosa (who was far more shot than Benn after the Williams wars), Lucas, and Brannon...how were they relevant?

You can excuse this stuff in a narrow focus but not when measured against the best who ever did it. They earned it. Roy got a lot of it proclaimed for him and it was his career choices that left the emperor with no clothes when 2004 shattered the visage. I give him the credit he earned. he was great despite the flaws but that those are flaws in this type analysis is beyond dispute.

[crold1]

Your more on point than the author is. Seriously, i was surprised he had Roy ranked as a all time great the way he came across. Unfortunately, in this business this is what loses do, it can take away from your greatness. I remember Roy was in an Interview saying "That its not as if I dont fight nobody I just make them look like nobody". And that was the case with Roy because in his prime, he was that great.

Whats really not mentioned in this article while he's deciphering all of Roy's achievements (OR LACK THEREOF) is that what made Roy so great was that in his prime, he was the epitome of boxing or the quote on quote the ability to hit, and not get hit. Fighter of the year is an outstanding accomplishment in itself. This man was fighter of the decade in the 90's. So by the time he even fought Ruiz he was a 1st ballot hall of famer. If i didnt know any better i wouldve thought the author is a Roy Jones hater.

He was one of the fighter's of the 90s. The BWAA picked Roy; Ring and other picked Whitaker while still others had Holy. I've always felt Whitaker did more than anyone else in the 90s.

And, for Shawn, here is the full piece with the Abraham stuff (and DiBella, and Merchant, etc.) on Jones:

http://www.maxboxing.com/Bernard/Fernandez041307.asp

[jayhova29]

I slipped on Dariusz. My point is still valid. He unified once, dropped all the belts and went back to making meaningless defenses of the WBO belt.

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.

i couldnt agree more, im 31, going on 32, so i remember the early and late 90's, and i could never recall Dariusz demanding a fight with Roy, he never wanted to fight outside of his own country, and after what Roy experienced in the olympics can you blame him for not wanting to travel anywhere outside the US. Why fight Nigel Benn, he was a has been at the time Roy was climbing through the division. If im the number 1 fighter in the world and the number 2 wants to fight me, then he shouldnt be picky as to where the fight takes place, if he wanted fight that bad. Are there fighters on his resume that you look at and say dam, who the **** is this bum, dam right, but another point he made was that a lot of these guys we thought were bums went on to have some great careers after they lost to Jones. Look at Calzaghe before he fought Lacy, 95% of his list were whos whos, and if you knew the person he fought, then that fighter was well out of his prime, 24-4 in title fights. He beat James Toney when he was ranked no lower than 3rd best pound for pound. Ya'll must of forgot, Boxing is the art of hit, and not being hit, and he mastered that.

[jayhova29]

Fighter of the Decade in a Decade that included Pernell Whitaker.

lol, i dont know if your agreeing with me or disagreeing with me, but the Boxers writers association had him as the fighter of the decade in the 90's, and pernell whitaker had lost to de la hoya, and trinidad, Jones didnt have a legitmate loss til 2004.