Of course he would fight Tyson. Jones was not the HW champion of the world. HE was a title holder. Lennox Lewis was. To say otherwise is disrespectful to him.
More impressed with a win over Johnson, who I had picked to beat Ruiz, than a TKO loss to Byrd? Yes. Ruiz was never impressive, but he was winning that Johnson fight with or without the DQ.
We are debating whether he'd done enough at the time to be rated higher than Ruiz. I say no. A loss of any description does not raise you in any rankings.
He'll just keep doing this. He could sit here, all day, never giving an inch, disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.
They win a belt, they have the right to call themselves the champ. It's the way boxing is. I'm not saying I agree.
Well neither of you have asked if I'M tired but seeing as how it's 1:30am I AM tired and will see what this thread has done tomorrow.
I was more impressed with Vitali's performance than Ruiz's before Vitali got injured and couldnt go on. The ruiz fight was dead even before Johnson got DQed.
Vitali's amazing performance vs. Byrd was three years before the time we're talking about. He did nothing between Byrd and 2003. Ruiz was beating Johnson.
33 pound weight difference, skipping two divisions to fight him?:dunno: Yet, Hopkins is praised for moving up and fighting Tarver when he began his career at light heavyweight. Jones over Ruiz>Hopkins over Tarver. Easily. Tarver couldn't even defend the light heavyweight title once before losing it. Oh yeah, and Roy beat Tarver too.
Tarver is being made out to be some type of all time great, when it's far from the case. Obviously he beat Roy, but did not do much outside of that.
Nothing indicates nothing. But the truth is that he had fought 5 times since then knocking out 4. Where as before that Ruiz went life and death with Holy for 36 rounds. Losing one, winning one and a draw.
You call it skipping two weight divisions to fight Ruiz, i call it skipping two weight divisions to avoid Darius and to capture an easy belt.
Holyfield was rated at the time though, the guys Vitali beat weren't. Shit, to this day, Vitali still doesn't have a win over someone as good as a 2000/2001 Holyfield.
So what does that say about Roy? What are you trying to say? While defending Roy you are bashing him at the same time. :dunno:
Holyfield was showing signs of old age since the bean fight. THat fight wasnt pretty and you can tell Holy was near the end of his second rise. Then his back to back fights with lewis didnt help his health, So I dont think he was all that good by the time he fought Ruiz.
He wasn't very good, I agree. Still, he fought pretty close with LL in the rematch... and you can't really find a win on Vitali's ledger that's better. :dunno:
You're a little off on the timeline there. In 2003, Ruiz was a much better fight to take. He didn't fight Ruiz to avoid Dariusz man, that's silly.
It wasnt the sole reason, but i believe it was one of them. My timeline is fine. He was still undefeated and roy was still bashed for avoiding him.