What does Hopkins have that Jones doesn't?

[mikeeod]

Every fighter has a coulda, would a, should a, but Roy was the man to beat and it was the other top fighters that did not fight him.

I disagree with that statement. You can't force a guy to get in the ring with you. If he had missed a few guys only throughout his career, then I would agree with you. Great fighters test themselves and prove themselves against other great fighters. Just look at the competition that Whitaker, Tito, Oscar, Shane, Hopkins, Holyfield, Lewis...etc. took on throughout their career.

Roy isn't a bum and I don't think that he was scared of anyone. I do think that he is a smart man and was more interested in making the most money for the least amount of risk and not with securing his legacy. While I agree that the guy was a supreme talent and could have beaten or at least given trouble to any fighter in history, he was at fault for not making some of those big fights happen and his legacy will suffer because of it.

Roy beat B Hop and Toney who are great fighters, he unified all the belts at light heavy and the top fighters should come to him. I do not even consider Roy to be a great light heavy but would at super middle if he stayed long enough.

The Hop that Roy beat in 1993 was green and no where near the fighter he became in the late 90's and early 2000's to mid 2000's. Hop was tough, but not an elite fighter at that point, just like Roy was no longer elite when Hop beat him in their rematch. Toney was Roy's best win, and only win over a p4p ranked (at the time of the fight) guy.

Roy also never unified all the belts at light heavy, Darius was the WBO and lineal champ. It is hard to say which weight was better for Roy, in my opinion, because he had a great win over Toney at 168, but overall weaker challengers to his title (Vinny Paz!!!). At 175 Roy didn't have that great, signature win over a top p4p guy, but he fought slightly better competition overall than what he had at 168.

I always thought 168 was the perfect weight for Roy, as he had one punch power and was a good sized 168 pounder. At 175 he was on the smaller side (until he fought Ruiz, then he looked HUGE!), and had enough power to shake and discourage guys, but not blow them out as consistently, although the Virgil Hill and Montell stoppages were impressive and spectacular.

[generalbulldog]

Speaking of Hopkins-Jones, did you know that in their 2nd fight Jones basically made 0 money? Yes, that's right, while Hopkins and Goldenboy made $3.5 million.

• Yahoo! Sports columnist Kevin Iole reported that Jones probably didn't make any money for the fight. He wrote:

The sad thing about the fight is that Jones won't make anything. Let's assume for a second that the 6,792 in the building actually paid for their seats (we know that's not true) and that the seats averaged $300 a ticket (a figure higher than reality). That would mean the gate was $2 million. If the expenses to rent the building and promote the fight were $1 million, that means $1 million is left. Now, let's figure it sold 100,000 pay-per-views at $49.95 apiece. That's about $5 million. They have to split 50 percent of that with the cable and satellite operators, so that leaves $2.498 million for themselves. Add the $1 million from the gate and the $2.498 million from the pay-per-view and you have $3.498 million in profit. Given that the contract called for the first $3.5 million in profit to go to Hopkins and Golden Boy, it's almost certain Jones fought for nothing.

Bernard Hopkins vs. Roy Jones Jr. (2nd meeting) - Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia