Greater fighter: Roy Jones Jr or Floyd Mayweather?

[A-Wolf]

I've heard many excuses from Hopkins after many of his losses. So I take his excuses with a grain of salt.

I've watched all Hopkins fights as well. And what I see in the 1st Jones fight was an iron chinned, tight defense, crafty Hopkins with his timing, speed and power in tact. Only problem is he was in with prime RJJ. Anyone else across the ring he beats, including a Tito Trinidad coming up from 154.

And to be honest with you, I don't think it's fair to RJJ or saying much by using a victory over Tarver, Trinidad and Pavlik as justification to why Hopkins wasn't prime against RJJ. none of those guys were in Roy's league stylistically.

But if you are using the Pavlik and Tarver victories as prime then are you saying Taylor and Calzaghe beat prime Hopkins?

Your basic premise is that Hopkins had no evolution. Was fully formed at least by the point he fought RJJ and I couldn't disagree more. He clearly improved and adjusted year by year. We'll have to just disagree about this.

Regarding his performances against Taylor, Calzaghe and others - the "waiting" version of Hopkins - that was also something he adjusted fight by fight during a period of years. And this "waiting" thing I'm talking about happened in many situations where he won against inferior competition.. Watch the Taylor fights. Watch the Calzaghe fight. Then watch every fight Bernard had after Calzaghe. EVERY fight. The waiting was gone. He was always leading the attack. Watch Hopkins in Taylor I. Watch the Eastman fight before it. It's a completely different fighter from the guy who's jumping all over Kelly Pavlik as if every round is going to be his last. He reverted and switched things many times over.

The terms in which you're attributing Bernard as a fighter is just too black and white for me. He reinvented and adjusted his methods many, many times over the years. As many times as Cal Ripken changed his batting stance.

[robertzimmerman]

el***,

I still disagree, Roy's resume between Toney and Tarver is extremely week. Mayweather did not take a 10 year break from fighting A level competition. The ruiz win is one of his best but lets be real, it was hand picked to suit his style and theres a reason he immediately vacated.

How can it have been extremely weak?

Guys like: Griffin, Reggie, Hill, Harding and Woods etc, were all good fighters.

Floyd fought more recognisable names but they weren't all A level fighters.

Roy vacated his HW title because he was a 35 year old LHW. Only a mega money fight would have prolonged his stay.

Would Floyd have ever taken on a challenge like that?

And you bring up Roy being naturally smaller, ****, mayweather fought almost his entire career not only being naturally smaller but being 10+ pounds fight night weight smaller than his opponent. The only fight I can even think of he outweighed his opponent was JMM. He even weighed in less than pacquaio and judah.

Floyd has a huge reach and huge arms for a man of his size.

Being outweighed by 10 plus pounds wasn't a huge disadvantage for him when he had a reach advantage over almost everyone he fought. That's not the same as being completely outsized in terms of height, reach and over 30 pounds in weight.

[robertzimmerman]

Please tell me you are trolling? How is this even a debate? I like Roy he was the best boxer in the world for about 8 years. Mayweather has been been dominating for about 20 years straight without a loss. Mayweather has a record of 24-0 against world champions while Roy is 18-9. Yeah he fought past his prime but Floyd has been past his prime for years as well and you never saw him lose like that. The reason why is because Roy was great due to his speed/reflexes and once that left what he had left wasn't good enough anymore. Floyd is the most complete boxer ever so even once most of his speed/reflexes are gone he's still too smart for everyone else. Skill wise there has never been anyone as good as Mayweather, not even close. He's fought a who's who of great fighters over almost a 20 year period and only 2 of those fights have even been close, that unreal & speaks for itself.

Haters will say anything to discredit this man. It's comedy

Floyd is one of the greatest of all time, but your post is very biased.

[robertzimmerman]

It's totally asinine to even compare them now. Even if you don't include all of RJJ's past prime losses, Mayweather has not just beat but dominated the best guys in 5 different divisions. Roy's resume is weak in comparison and if you're looking at their skill sets then Mayweather is miles better. He's like Hopkins/RJJ combined but way more talented/intelligent. If you guy's don't think he's the best of the last 20 years at this point you might as well go and watch another sport like the UFC because it's clear you don't know much about the sport of boxing.

Roy's resume isn't weak in comparison.

Floyd didn't dominate the best guys in 5 divisions.

[robertzimmerman]

Roy was great to watch in his prime for sure, did some crazy things in the ring. I tend not to hold the performances at the end of their career's against them though, Floyd has been past it for a few years now he's obviously not as athletic/quick but this happens with everyone. Roy has some dull fights against overmatched guy's too (McCallum, Telesco, Harmon to name a few). I'd probably agree that he was more entertaining, but I also feel like Floyd would've had a lot more knockouts if not for his hand problems and always fighting bigger guys and going up in weight.

The Telesco fight wasn't dull, and Roy would also have scored more knockouts had it not being for fighting bigger guys whilst having issues with his hands.

[robertzimmerman]

At 154 he beat De La Hoya (lineal champ), Cotto (#1 JMW) and Canelo (#1 JMW) so that's 3 guys who were all considered the best in the whole division at the time so yeah you can say he dominated this division. These guys were all like 20lbs naturally bigger and they between all of them they won about 7 rounds.

The first Castillo fight and the first Maidana fight are the only fights in his career that were close, he rematched both straight away and won both rematches easily. The De La Hoya fight wasn't even close, if you watch it without the commentary at best you will give him 3 rounds. If you watch that fight and seriously think he won you don't know **** about boxing, he landed 100+ more punches FFS.

"Augustus busted him up", LOL he lost every single round clearly.

I'm done, thanks for the comedy!

He didn't dominate a faded Oscar, and he beat a faded Cotto, and Canelo at an unecessary C-W.

Oscar only won 3 rounds?

You don't want an objective debate.

[robertzimmerman]

Also Roy didn't beat half the top guys around his weight during his reign.
He did beat Toney though but he missed out on Dariuz/Benn/Eubank/Mccellan. Those guys were seriously dangerous for Roy. This is a bit different from Floyd missing out on some fighters during his prime. Floyd's competitor pool was much larger than Roy's, in order for Floyd to fight everyone around their primes, he would had to fight like 10 fights a year. Roy's competitive pool around his weights at the time was maybe a dozen fighters at best. So missing out on a full third is not acceptable.

Around his 160-175 weight, a case can be made that Benn/Dariuz/Eubank/and Mccellan were 4 of the top 10 of the 90's.

Roy couldn't get fights against those opponents.

The difference between him and Floyd, is that Floyd kept retiring. He retired to partake in the WWE and cited he wanted family time etc. The man who's in the "cheque cashing business" wouldn't cash Oscar's rematch cheque.

[robertzimmerman]

Castillo was close but DLH was no where near close. Floyd clearly landed the cleaner punches. DLH hit air and threw arm punch flurries that missed everything at the ten second bell every round.

I had Floyd clearly winning, but I was still a close, competitive fight.

[robertzimmerman]

A case could also be made that Roy avoided the Steve Collins fight, but Collins had no attributes that could trouble Roy so he should get a pass on that one.

There's no case that can be made.

[Kigali]

Mayweather's best prime win fighter is a weight drained corrales. His best foe was 2 inches shorter and has about 6 inches less reach in manny and has already been koed.

Jealous-hearted old Cuban