Quote Originally Posted by Markusdarkus View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Taeth View Post
I just watched Floyd-Oscar and Leonard Benitez, and one thing I noticed was that even though both Floyd and Leonard were clearly better fighters(note that Benitez took that fight on extremely short notice and only trained liked 2 weeks for it). Anyways these fights along with Pernell Whitaker-Chavez and Meldrick Taylor-Chavez got me thinking what makes Roy JOnes so much more dominant than these guys? They all have/had blistering speed(except Whitaker) yet none of them looked to utterly inhuman in there.

Now obviously Roy has been the best athlete to ever grace the sport of boxing, he had underrated power at MW/SMW, but he really hit close to as hard as anyone in the division ever had, He wasn't quite Julian Jackson, but it was close enough. And nobody has quite had his p4p speed in the ring, but Mosley, Mayweather, Leonard, Taylor, Ali all p4p were pretty close.

Let me get to my point I was watching Leonard fight Benitez and I always noticed that when Leonard threw a combination early on it was always left jab, right hook/cross then left hook, Mayweather threw the same type of punches against Oscar all night ,and though he landed at a high % he wasn't able to land them as hard as he would want to because Oscar could predict where those punches were coming from. Meldrick Taylor use pretty good combinations, but he was there to be hit afterwards, his cross also wasn't very powerful or well thrown.

I've also been watching Roy Jones against Reggie Johnson, James Tony, Virgill Hill, Montell Griffin, Hopkins, . Against Hopkins and Griffin Roy Roy wasn't being very inventive and he couldn't get anything done offensively, but watch his other fights against Telesco in particular and you see Roy throwing the most imaginative combinations I've ever seen, he could beat these guys with just speed, but he throws from ever conceivable angle, and he could go backwards or forwards and dominate at the same level because his opponent had no idea where the next punch would come from let alone react to its speed. Roy had the best balance I've ever seen in boxing and IMO he was the smartest boxer ever. Sure he didn't do things in a perfect orthodox manner, but the way he did things he had to be gifted, but also outhink his opponents on many, many levels, and I have no seen any fighter do it like Roy did in his prime. If you need evidence of that watch his fights, pay attention to those combinations, then watch any of these other greats and you will see a remarkable difference in the quality of their offensive abilities.

"Now obviously Roy has been the best athlete to ever grace the sport of boxing" er no.

Great fighter yes but that is over playing it especially when you consider what went on with Roy from Tony - Tarver and the "ripped fuel" thing.

Was a great but not the best athlete in boxing history.

Leonard and Oscar looked human because of who they were fighting......... now who was Roy fighting when you made that assumption? i rest my case.
OK Roy wasn't consistently fighting as good fighters as Oscar and Leonard (because his divisions didn't have the same level of competition) but he fought Toney and Hopkins in their primes and easily beat both and barring Hagler I'd put them up as being as good as anyone Oscar, Floyd or Leonard ever fought.

Another point is people seem to think that Roy didn't carry his power upto LHW. This is wrong he did (see Griffen II). The thing was he was at this point deemed as being the greatest fighter in the world (deservedly) and was trying to display his skills more than his power and this sometimes seemed as though he no longer had a big KO punch. The only division IMO he didn't carry his power upto was Heavyweight which is understandable when you consider he started as a Junior middleweight.