Is Roy Jones Jr a legend?

By Adam Fillingham: Calling all British fans! Have you heard of that fighter that Americans call a legend, Roy Jones Jr? Well I cant take anything away from the man, he is a great fighter but did he fight the best fighters like American fans seem to bang on about, when talking about British boxers. In my opinion no. Lets just match your legend Roy Jones to our legend Joe Calzaghe.

Both won there first world title around the same fight experience( jones fighting 21 fights, Calzaghe fighting 22). They both beat fantastic fighters to get there. Calzaghe beat ring legend Chris Eubank and Jones beat Bernard Hopkins.

From here Calzaghe did what he had to do. He defeated all of his mandatories with ease. So did Jones Jr taking out James Toney along the way but jones Jr lost. He stupidly got himself DQ for hitting Griffin while he was on the ground. Also the fight was very close on the scorecards in the 7th round.

At the time of Jones’s loss he could have fought anyone but he took on a less able Griffin who still took him close on the scorecards. He was obviously less able as Jones took him out in the first round of thier rematch. Calzaghe didn’t have this luxury as nobody with a big name would fight him so he had to take on his no.1 mandatories.

After this Jones took on a lot of Champions in the light heavyweights. He covered up the fact that non of these fighters were all that good with all the belts he was defending at the time.

After finding this too easy and not taking on the likes of Joe Calzaghe or Hopkins again he moved up to the flawed Heavyweight scene and beat up the worst champion at the time( who was also having family problems I will add) and beat John Ruiz to a pulp to win the WBA world Heavyweight title.

Then while Calzaghe was contently winning the ‘lesser able’ fighters from europe and going about his buisness in a quiet way Jones Jr was getting his head kicked in by an overrated Antonio Tarver and a fighter with a really bad record in Glen Johnson. Now neither have fantastic power and yet both knocked him out.

Jones came back from this with three wins over not great opposition to fight an lso past his best Joe Calzaghe. Roy Jones was ripped to shreads by the BRIT and will stand as one of the greatest USA Vs UK fights in history.

My final point will be that how Americans like Scott Gilfoid bang on that fighters should travel to get the best fights like joe calzaghe should have but Roy Jones never once fought out of the USA.