Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo

Jones' biggest wins are against Hopkins, but before Hop was in his prime, a massively weight drained James Toney and a rather useless heavyweight champ.

Hopkins' biggest wins are against two Hall of famers in Oscar and Trinidad BUT they had to come up in weight to fight him, and Antonio Tarver who no matter what people thought about him was THE man at 175 lb.

You gotta say that Trinidad and Oscar for Hopkins is about equal to Hopkins and Toney for Jones.

Jones beat Hopkins so gains a point there but Hopkins beat both guys who sparked Jones out.

Jones won the heavyweight crown against a weak champ, whilst Hopkins won the light heavyweight crown against the strongest champ at that time.

I'd say they are about even in terms of legacy right now.

If Hopkins beats Wright, he edges ahead. If he followed that up with a win against a S*** heavyweight to win an alphabet belt I would say that makes him the greatest American fighter of his era, ahead of Jones and Toney.
Its unfair to downplay RJJ's big wins like that. I understand Ruiz won't go down in history as the greatest or most popular HW champ of all time, but to say he is useless is unfair and innaccurate as I believe he was a decent fighter who beat guys like Holyfield, Golota, Rahman, Oquendo, ect and SHOULD hold a win over Valuev. So for Roy to move up and dominate him like that, thats a big victory IMO.

Also I think its unfair that you point out that Hopkins wasn't yet at his "prime" when he fought RJJ (which IMO is not really a good excuse, seeing as how they both turned pro around the same time period) but then you say something like "Hopkins beat both guys who sparked Jones out" and fail to mention that Roy was out of his prime when he got sparked by those guys.

Don't get me wrong, I think the legacies of Hopkins and Jones are just about even, or at least very close...