Is Roy Jones Jr. the best boxer the world has ever seen ?
Roy was VERY talented. But the best boxer the world has ever seen? No way! He was unispiring in his first world title win against an equally tentative Bernard Hopkins. He then saw to price himself out of any potential rematch. He did a lot of things fundamentally incorrect but in his prime, his speed and reflexes saved him. As he got older, well just watch the tapes of his fights with Tarver and Glenn Johnson to see what happened. A prime Roy Jones would have made interesting matchups with guys like Sugar Ray Robinson, Marvin Hagler, etc at middleweight and Bob Foster, Michael Spinx, Archie Moore, and Ezzard Charles at light heavyweight. I honestly can’t see him beating most of those guys.
Roy Jones Jr. was gifted with some of the most incredible boxing talent that the sport has ever seen. This gift of hands as fast as a lightweights and unbelievable reflexes that made him shine so well was also his undoing. Roy’s talent and natural ability got in the way of his skill. As the fights went by, he became more and more reliant upon his ability to avoid conflict in unorthodox ways, abandoned combination punches, and became a very predictable fighter that was difficult to engage. What happens with fighters like this is their ability to stay out of harms way for so long makes them unable to contend with harm when it catches up to them and they collapse like a deck of cards when struck by the feather-fisted likes of Antonio Tarver. Roy spent way too much time avoiding contact by disengaging and not by dislodging (slipping sideways ala Mayweather). In the end, he may well be remembered as one of the most talented fighters to lace up a pair of gloves but his lack of discipline to
