By Richard Doyle: Can anyone argue about the best fighter of the last 20 years, Roy Jones jr had the skill, power, speed, style and charisma of a truly great boxing champ who dominated boxing in the 90s winning world championships at middleweight ,super middleweight and light heavyweight before winning the heavyweight title in 2003. The only boxer in the last 100 years to win belts from middleweight to heavyweight divisions.
Anyone who thinks he ducked fighters are truly out of their mind, Jones had to go through the weights because there was no fighter around in the 90s that could come near him in the ring, take for instance Bernard Hopkins and pound for pound number one (at the time) James Toney both in which he dominated, and who could forget the statement he made against Montell Griffin a totally awesome first round Knockout this was after he destroyed hall of famer Mike McCallum. You can even measure how good he was by how he beat Clinton Woods in 2002 a fight that looked more like a Roy Jones expedition than anything else, I know you may not rate Woods but take a further look at his record a world champion in his own right who has only been knocked out once and we all Know who did that, but also went the distance with up and coming Tavoris Cloud, Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson whom he also beat. He then went for Ruiz who became a two time world Heavyweight Champion and dominated him before going back down in weight to fight Antonio Tarver and winning by unanimous decision.
Unfortunately in his fight with Tarver you could start to see the cracks forming in Jones fighting style and he probably should have called it a day then and not fought a rematch in which he lost by Knockout before losing twice more once to Glen Johnson and again to Tarver. He did have a little comeback run before losing to Joe Calzaghe and later to Hopkins (a boring fight that should have happened years earlier) but his prime was well behind him, even so he went 15 years without being beaten taking the on best that was there in each division and looked good whenever he stepped into a ring, he is by far the best of an era.
This is my top 10 of the last 20 years:
1.Roy Jones jr
2.Manny Pacquiao
3.Floyd Mayweather
4.Felix Trinidad
5.Joe Calzaghe
6.Bernard Hopkins
7.Oscar de la Hoya
8.Parnell Whittiker
9.Manuel Marquez
10.Mike Tyson
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