Roy Jones vs Billy Conn (resume and p4p standing)

[GhostofDempsey]

It's a 50/50 fight. In terms of resume they are about equal, maybe Conn gets a slight advantage. Skill, Toss up between Jones speed and Conn's overall skill. Maybe Conn by split decision in a very close and highly debated win at 175. At 168 I favor Jones.

[phallus]

Personally I think Conn's resume is far superior to RJJ's.

Conn is best known as a light-heavy, but his resume at middleweight is possibly just as good, despite never holding a world title at the weight. I'd say his resume at middleweight is better than Jones's resume at middleweight and super-middle and by quite a distance.

At light-heavyweight their resumes are quite even. I again have Conn ahead, but I can understand anyonne who ranks RJJ's light-heavy CV ahead of Conn's.

At heavyweight I don't see how RJJ's win over Ruiz can be more impressive than Conn's brave loss to Louis in their 1st meeting.

Jones won world titles in 4 weight classes to Conn's 1. But Conn's middleweight CV is better than Jones', there was no Super-Middleweight division in Conn's eras and Conn didn't have the option of taking on a weaker alphabet titleholder at heavyweight, his only option was to take on a guy who was at worst the 2nd greatest heavyweight of all time.

Conn hands down.

This was my point exactly.

Fritzie Zivic, Vince Dundee, Young Corbett, Fred Apostoli all fantastic fighters.

Conn has one of THE great boxing CV's. I have him ranked in my top 15 middleweights and light-heavyweights of all-time. The Ring have him ranked the 9th best light-heavyweight of all-time and the 10th best middleweight.

Now head-to-head RJJ is a beast who you could confidently match up with any middleweight and light-heavy in history. But resume wise there are plenty of great fighters ahead of him. Billy Conn is one of them.

Wasn't it already explained we're talking about the old middleweight limit before the junior and super divisions were thought up?

From 147.1 to 167.9 Conn beat far more quality fighters than RJJ.

Zivic, Dundee, Corbett, Apsotili, Yarosz and Risko are more impressive victories than Hopkins, Tate, Malinga, Toney, Byrd and Pazienza.

I find Conn the more impressive. He was matched much tougher throughout his career and his overall body of work was superior to Jones, imo. Eight of his losses were before his 20th birthday. Of the rest, two were to Louis, one to Hall of Famer Yarosz (who he also beat twice) and to Solly Krieger, a tough middleweight who he also beat twice. Someone said Jones looked like Superman. So would Conn against the likes of Glen Kelly and Rick Frazier. And does anyone think Conn would have hesitated for a second when it came to fighting a Michalczewski?

Even Jones' wins over Hopkins and Toney get a bit overblown. Toney though a quality fighter on his day has always been up and down (I thought he was clearly beaten by Dave Tiberi, for instance). Hopkins-Jones was two fairly untested prospects fighting for a vacant title. Hopkins didn't have many recognisable names on his resume at that point. Jones beating that Hopkins isn't more impressive to me than a 19 year old Conn defeating vastly more experienced Hall of Famers like Teddy Yarosz and Fritzie Zivic.

I think Conn's power is also being undersold here. He wasn't Bob Foster but he had enough pop to keep Joe Louis honest for 13 rounds and did KO a good durable heavyweight in Bob Pastor, whose only other KO was to Louis. It should also be borne in mind that Conn fought a lot of tough guys who didn't get stopped very often: Dundee (1 KO loss in 154 fights), Yarosz (1 KO in 127 fights), Zivic (4 KOs in 223 fights), Corbett (4 KOs in 156 fights) which dilutes his record more.

]It is a great thread topic because the boys size up well on paper and mythically. [/B]

You know without doubt that fighters from Billy's era were forced to wade through a deeper talent pool to ascend to the top. The talent pool was not split into four or five pieces. Take the top ten from any division of the top five alphabet soup organizations today, and you will find at least forty different fighters listed in the top ten. Hmmm...

Conn fought consistently tougher opposition and had the better chin.

Roy did not face opposition quite as tough and experienced most of the time, but when he did, he dominated them almost as easily as he did his lesser conquests.

H2H, Roy has greater one-pop power than Billy, and he is faster. But he never faced anyone as fast and busy as Billy, either, who seems designed to give him all kinds of trouble.

Despite obvious stance differences, the match resembles how a timely Calzaghe/Jones match might have unfolded, if Calzaghe could have hung around long enough to warm up and survive a surprise Jones bomb, like he did in the untimely (and therefore somewhat meaningless) bout they did have that was years late.

H2H is the main part of the discussion that interests me. These men are built to amaze each other in the ring.

If I thought Roy's chin were as strong as Billy's, Roy would probably win, if he fought right, which would be to mix it up with Billy. But his chin is not as strong, IMO. Even though Conn is hitting you all the time, he is also moving constantly, which means Roy has to go after him at some point. He may need to cut the ring off and trap Conn. Then again, the speed of Jones may be capable of exploiting the opportunity when any man touches him, in motion or not. It would just have to play out in the ring, which we can imagine in any detail we want, but not with much reliability. That is what would make this such a great match on paper, once one throws in the intangibles. Roy had some of the quickest cat-feet to ever appear in a ring. But he did not cover the ring in motion like a SRL. He liked to stand there and move to get an angle as the man was coming in at him. We would have to see how that played out, and if Roy would have the ring generalship to fight differently if the need arose, which it might, if Billy's mastery of orthodox boxing prevents Roy from landing the shots he needs fighting his lazy way.

I think a prime Conn would be the best opponent Jones ever faced.

But Conn would be fighting a lightning bolt.

Both men lack the highest instincts of ring generalship. Jones will probably not be active enough against Conn, but Conn is susceptible to bigtime lapses in generalship (which is mostly a sense of what should be done now).

Because of Roy's blazing speed, it might be possible for him to KO Billy with a single shot Billy never sees at all, careless moment or not, even though it did take a number of shots for even the mighty Louis to pound him down. I believe it is mostly really fast fighters who have a number of one-punch KO's to their credit, like Roy and Robinson. That is a spontaneous surmisal I may need to investigate further, because certainly slower fighters score one punch KO's from time to time too. But it is a little off-topic for now, I suppose, and for my mood.

It's a 50/50 fight. In terms of resume they are about equal, maybe Conn gets a slight advantage. Skill, Toss up between Jones speed and Conn's overall skill. Maybe Conn by split decision in a very close and highly debated win at 175. At 168 I favor Jones.

Conn's resume is more impressive, he fought more world champion level and ATG level fighters, and to me Conn's loss to Joe Louis is more impressive than Jones win over Ruiz. Ruiz was a decent hw but Joe Louis is considered by some (me included) to be one of the greatest hws ever. Conn was about 6 minutes away from a one sided decision over Louis (the undisputed HW champion at the time) when he through a mental lapse or overconfidence thought he could stand and trade with Louis and got KTFO'd. i think because of his speed Roy could probably knock out Conn if they fought but Conn is the better mover and the better all around fighter at 168