Quote Originally Posted by El Kabong View Post
I don't think he was before he drained himself back down to 175. Let's face facts RJJ vs Tarver would have been best done either BEFORE the Ruiz fight or after the Ruiz fight at CRUISERWEIGHT where RJJ at 199 would have been just fine. When Roy got KO'd by Tarver he got caught with a HUGE punch from a big puncher, when he got KO'd vs Glen Johnson he was getting out hustled, he had 0 pop in his punches, his stamina wasn't there, and again he got hammered by a guy who could bang pretty good.

That said he never really played with fire in terms of allowing himself to get hit he was always a guy who accepted a punch and then gave back punches harder and faster to quell the attack. He was never a face first brawler obviously.
I pretty much agree with this completely!!

I always though that Jones should have called it a day after that fight with Ruiz, he had nothing left to prove, he dominated 175lbs division for years and then took on a HW because he had run out of challenges years before in his own division. He was obviously never going to beat Lennox and he knew that so all he could really do was go down in weight and after adding 20+lbs of muscle in his mid thirties it was never going to be easy and as you say he lacked the pop in his punches and stamina when he did go back down and I also believe he lost his punch resistance then too, although there wasn't much proof he had a great chin before as he very rarely got touched on it.

Lets be fair Tarver, Johnson and Calzaghe would not have beaten or even got close to beating a prime Roy Jones.