Measured Against All Time: Roy Jones Jr.

[KiloTeague]

Roy was the best in amatuer, best in olympics, best in pros. Hes been the best everywhere he's been. Some people are just in denial.

[crold1]

Every fighter has ten fighters saying he never fought me. The fact is He beat the best guy at 160 then moved up in weight to take bigger challenges. Then he fought the best guy at 168 to fight bigger challenges. He won every major belt at 175 and then moved up to take bigger challenges. Then he won a heavyweight Title. Not thee, but A heavyweight title and since that hadn't been done in over 100 years....

All these lil fighters you guys say Roy ducked are like Pacman fighting Nate Cambell after he lost to Bradley. If Pac beats Bradley, there would be no point to fight Cambell. Thats what your asking of Roy. He beat Bernard and Toney, but then you want him to fight the guys that Bernard and Toney beat. It makes no sense.

The only argument you have is Darius but, thats one guy. Is that one fight going to make Roy's legacy any better. No Roy already beat guys that were bigger and better.

Any other fighter would have stayed at 160 his whole career, but only a very very very very very special fighter can go from 160 to win a heavyweight championship. I don't care what version it is.

No, he beat the guy who eventually became the best at 60. Hopkins was far from considered the best in 1993. He was barely a top ten guy then. And Roy couldn't stay at 60 his whole career. He was too big and grew out of the division naturally.

[TheGreatA]

I'm pretty sure that Hopkins was something like number 8 or number 9 contender at the time, next to Vinny Pazienza...

Julian Jackson, James Toney and Reggie Johnson were top 3. Mike McCallum and Sumbu Kalambay were in the mix. Roy Jones and McClellan went onto become the number 1 and number 2.

[IMDAZED]

No, he beat the guy who eventually became the best at 60. Hopkins was far from considered the best in 1993. He was barely a top ten guy then. And Roy couldn't stay at 60 his whole career. He was too big and grew out of the division naturally.

Hopkins may have barely been a top ten guy in terms of ranking but not ability. It certainly doesn't diminish Jones' accomplishment of beating him. No one else could either for another 12-14 years.

[crold1]

Hopkins may have barely been a top ten guy in terms of ranking but not ability. It certainly doesn't diminish Jones' accomplishment of beating him. No one else could either for another 12-14 years.

Agree. However, in THAT field, given where he was development wise, he was only a fringe top ten guy. That was a SICK Middleweight class.

[TheGreatA]

Hopkins may have barely been a top ten guy in terms of ranking but not ability. It certainly doesn't diminish Jones' accomplishment of beating him. No one else could either for another 12-14 years.

Most certainly not. But I do wish he had fought some of the people I listed during his short middleweight reign.

Of course he did end up fighting Reggie Johnson and Mike McCallum much later on but I don't those fights were as big then as they would have been then.

He chased the superfight with James Toney at 168 but disappointingly did not really face any other worthy contenders while in that division.

[IMDAZED]

Agree. However, in THAT field, given where he was development wise, he was only a fringe top ten guy. That was a SICK Middleweight class.

It sure was although they didn't last very long. Most moved to 168, others fell off the map entirely. Hopkins stuck around and dominated.

[IMDAZED]

Most certainly not. But I do wish he had fought some of the people I listed during his short middleweight reign.

Of course he did end up fighting Reggie Johnson and Mike McCallum much later on but I don't those fights were as big then as they would have been then.

He chased the superfight with James Toney at 168 but disappointingly did not really face any other worthy contenders while in that division.

Yup. Particularly McCallum who would've given Jones absolute hell at 160. Heck, he gave him problems at 175...40yrs old! Reggie Johnson had quite a resurrection at 175 when he KO'ed the heavily-hyped William Guthrie (remember how he was the man to beat Roy?) but I realized he was just too slow and had aged a bit too much to beat Roy when he made that boring first title defense.

[Dave Rado]

Great article, Cliff, but regarding your saying that because of the flaws in his résumé, he doesn't get into the top 50 of all time, I think you're over-emphasising résume - as opposed to quality as a fighter - when ranking people. For example, Jack Dempsey gets into most boxing historians' top 50, but his résumé wasn't that great, and he avoided many top fighters (mostly due to race). He's ranked that highly because he was such a complete fighter. Jack Johnson gets into the top 20 of some boxing historians' ATG lists, but he too doesn't really have that brilliant a résumé, and there were a few fighters he also should have faced and didn't - but again, he gets rated as highly as he does because he was such a complete fighter. I'm not saying résumé isn't very important, I just think that someone as brilliant in the ring, and as dominant in most of his fights, as Jones was, deserves to be at least in the top 50 despite the question marks over his résumé. At his best, he was as wonderful to watch as Ali was, and could do things that no other fighter I've ever seen could do.

[IMDAZED]

Great article, Cliff, but regarding your saying that because of the flaws in his résumé, he doesn't get into the top 50 of all time, I think you're over-emphasising résume - as opposed to quality as a fighter - when ranking people. For example, Jack Dempsey gets into most boxing historians' top 50, but his résumé wasn't that great, and he avoided many top fighters (mostly due to race). He's ranked that highly because he was such a complete fighter. Jack Johnson gets into the top 20 of some boxing historians' ATG lists, but he too doesn't really have that brilliant a résumé, and there were a few fighters he also should have faced and didn't - but again, he gets rated as highly as he does because he was such a complete fighter. I'm not saying résumé isn't very important, I just think that someone as brilliant in the ring, and as dominant in most of his fights, as Jones was, deserves to be at least in the top 50 despite the question marks over his résumé. At his best, he was as wonderful to watch as Ali was, and could do things that no other fighter I've ever seen could do.

Nice post, Dave. I can't think of 50 fighters better than Roy Jones in terms of talent and accomplishments.