Damn, RJJ, Damn

http://www.wtae.com/sports/26819931/detail.html

 

Of course you would.

 

In thier FIRST fight in the 6th round Ruddock hit Mike with some shots that woulda KO'd any of the heavyweight clowns of today IMO. Tyson not only took them, but smiled at Ruddock... then stopped him the next round(though a bit premature).

Mike had a HELLUVA chin, and his fighting heart is highly underrated.

 

He arguably took harder shots in the rematch. One uppercut in particular (i don't remember which round off hand) was sick. Mike was in a squatting position trying to avoid shots and then accelerate from his legs upward. Before he could, Ruddock smashed him with a bomb right underneath the chin that nearly lifted him.

 

In both fights he took shots that woulda violently KO'd 90% of heavys. The fact that Ruddock didnt even seriously hurt him in either fight speaks volumes of Tyson's chin.

I dont doubt at all that the 2 Ruddock wars took a huge toll on Tyson. People act like it was just prison that did him in. All those "smashes" didnt help.

 

Well i think Tyson was hurt on those occasions, he was just able to weather the storm. Mike at that point while starting to decline, still had the attitude and the mindset of being the best.

The post prison Tyson probably would have folded if he had to endure the same amount of punishment against Ruddock or anybody else.

 

Twas Hops, Hops ruins fighters, Hops 'steals dey soul' ,.. he needs something to compensate for no knockouts, so the 'schooling masterful, brilliant' aspect is the scribes way of lending a hand.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xie_u-dPC58#t=1m58s

 

Tyson fucked Rudduck up. Look at Rudducks face compared to Tyson...with that said...both guys took hellacious shots. Rudduck was never the same. After an ass kicking like that Rudduck was fodder for Lemmon.

Check out Rudduck's face during the interview. Tyson broke his jaw. Both were tough SOB's that night. Shows how solid Tyson's jaw was when properly conditioned. Even the Douglas fight...he took shots prior to the KO most guys would have gone down from.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE107olC2k8&feature=related

 

And yet Calzaghe fought a RJJ that was in early stages of brain damage.


Hopefully RJJ never fights again.

 

12 rounders where you swing like Roger Maris, land pretty little, get your eye bust open and get cracked cleanly, repeatedly, are known to do more damage than clean, early stoppages.

Go back and watch the fight. Roy took an awful lot of clean punishment. The left that split his face open in the 7th I believe was no slap.

 

Thats what Roy wants you to believe. Its all part of Roys constant desire for retroactive damage limitation, perversely.

He will be telling you next that when he fought Ruiz, he did so with Angina and the early stages of severe indigestion, and a mild infestation of tapeworm.

 

I meant to say Tarver II.

I think the first Tarver fight, or the making of weight for it, ruined Roys reflexes once and for all.

But it did not brain damage him above and beyond the usual degree of damage incurred by anyone who wins a relatively uneventful 12 rounder.

 

Thats about the size of it. Unfortunately Roy has his friends in the press who will be only too willing to tell us how Roys brain damage adds to Roys legacy and detracts from the legacy of all others who fought him.

 

Agreed. Roy was at his absolute peak when he fought Calzaghe.

 

Yeah, Ruddock took a horrible beating in that fight. Tyson said afterwards "I feel like I got jumped by ten guys".

Not only did Ruddock's face look awful, but he took a hammering to the body. Ruddock's facial expressions and right leg movement when the punch lands here say it all. Impressive that Ruddock was able to last the full 12.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6C-MgaUmUs#t=3m06s

I would say Tyson's jaw was still very impressive even when he wasn't in the best of shape. I don't know how he was able to not get dropped in the 7th round against Lewis. Lewis hit him with all kinds of right hands in that round.

 

Roy was damaged goods by the end of the first Tarver fight- but it was not neurological as such. His reflexes were diminished. Reflexes can be ruined by the trauma induced by severe short-term weight loss.

Severe weight loss goes beyond rapid weight loss. Roy didn't just drop weight, he dropped over 20lbs of lean muscular tissue. He also came off whatver gear he had been on for the Ruiz fight, which affected him additionally. Steroids and other hormonal additives offer tremendous aid to flagging bodies. Roy was most likely on something for the Ruiz fight, and then came off it for the Tarver fight. This was however secondary to the crushing effects of burning lean tissue. In some instances even lean heart tissue can be burned off.

The brain damage has been accreting all his career, as is the norm with most fighters. The brain can fix itself, like any living tissue, a break can do wonders for damaged tissue, but Roy has not been taking proper breaks. I would say any neurlogical issues Roy has start from the Johnson fight out and grow from there.

The 12 rounds with Calzaghe have accelerated the nascent damage considerably. It is well documented that repeated blows of middling force over a distance fight do more damage than the single heavy "KO" blows. Roy was badly cut which attests to his being hit often.

However, if you consider it sound logic or good journalism to persist with an agenda which seeks firstly to strip Calzaghe of what moderate merit stems from his win over Jones, and seeks only secondly to throw some light on Roys constant excuse making and self-delusion, and the damage which flows from same, then fire away kiddo. I shit on your so called journalistic credentials.

Roy wants people to believe that he has been carrying some sort of a serious brain injury since the time he fought Tarver first, or even before. Worse of all, Roy believes it himself. He knows he has no more big wins left in him so he is trying to undo the damage of the past 4 years outside the ring rather than inside it. Its sad and pathetic and it is dangerous.

But hey why help Roy when you can bash a tertiary party like Calzaghe.

Right now, steve_dave sounds like a washed up Felix Trinidad ::

 

On the part in bold we are in agreement.

 

On this part in bold we not in agreement. There was no merit in that win moderate or otherwise. Joe himself has said he wouldn't have gone near prime Roy but beating a guy who was clearly diminished should get him credit? It was a garbage fight.

Roy should have retired after Tarver 3. Either 2006 or 2007 if he wanted to go out on a win. His fight with Trinidad shouldn't have happened let alone any of the fights after it.

:: Based on what exactly? You're attributing JC with ruining Roy now? Even you don't believe that.

 

I think there was merit in it. He did stand in front of Roy, drop his hands, take a few flush right hands, and a forearm or two to the face. Joe showed a lot of skill and a lot of smarts. He did a lot of things to Roy Jones. Even Kellerman went so far as to say Roy had been "out-Royed."

I don't think the "Roy would have beat him in his prime" thing carries as miuch weight as people like to think. For openers, Calzaghe was past his best himself. Secondly, and more importantly, if you follow that logic down, it serves to strip a lot of fighters of a lot of credit. A few examples...

1. Douglas vs Tyson. Sure, Tyson was emotionally all over the place, had been floored in sparring, and was not focused. But did James Douglas know that? James Douglas didn't know that. All he knew was that he had recently lost his mother, was a 42-1 underdog, was fighting an unbeaten man. And he had to climb off the mat in addition.

2.Spinks vs Ali. Sure, Ali was well past his best...but Spinks came in with barely what, 7, 8 fights under his belt, showed balls, did his own thing and got the victory.

For what it is worth, prime Ripped-Fuel Roy beats prime Joe Calzaghe. But in and of itself, we can't say Joe gets zero merit for beating the Roy that he did.

I think this importing of Roys "brain damage" into the argument is a handy tool for getting Roy some much needed credit from fights he barely deserved any for. This is the same guy who just went 12 rounds with somebody who a lot of people think just beat Jean Pascal.

 

I said that a 12 rounder in which Roy took an awful lot of clean shots and had trouble keeping his man off him accelerated a nascent damage.

That is to say, it aggravated a pre-existing {but minimis} problem.

Do you think Roys neurological issues were no worse after the fight with Calazghe?

 

In all honesty, how much do you think that meant? Really. Roy Jones hadn't been 'Roy Jones' for nearly 5 years. Do I think it was impressive for JC to clown around with a diminished fighter? No. You go on to say that JC was past his best, this is probably true. What is also true is that he did not get KO'd twice and noticably become a poorer fighter prior to facing Roy Jones.

Interesting, because I don't think JC's resume carries as much weight as people might think. For starters, there should be asterisks next to his Jones and Hopkins victories. Hop has gone on to have success so he might be omitted from that. So his best names are Kessler and Lacy. Telling.

Hmmm. I'm talking about a guy who had been KO'd twice, clearly diminished and 38 years of age. You're talking about a guy who was 23 and undefeated. I don't see the correlation. Douglas deserves full credit for the win. Tyson's condition was a result of his personal life, Roy's the result of age and damage physically/mentally.

C'mon man. The Ali that fought Spinks was a shell. Do you really need me to break this down for you?

Ah. Ripped Fuel Roy tested dirty ONCE. Strangley enough so did his opponent. Both B samples were negative. Joe gets as much credit for beating Roy as he deserves: He beat an old fighter who was nowhere near his best. I never said ZERO credit, I said it was a garbage fight. A garbage fight in which JC got knocked down against a past it and clearly overmatched opponent. Kind of like Roy vs Trinidad. An interesting footnote but nothing more.

EDIT - I did say '...No merit moderate or otherwise...'. Let me change that to 'little to no merit.'

For the record, Hopkins deserves less credit than JC. RJ came off the losing end of a KO1 fight. Terrible fight. An embarrasment. As for the 'brain damage somehow equals credit arguement you've come up with: save it. Roy gets little credit for taking challenges late in his career. It's really too little too late for him.

Retirement beckons. I hear he's a good commentator. I hope he takes it up full time because boxing passed him by a long time ago.

 

Ironically, I have been arguing against a lot of worthless matchups for some time- please consult meetthefeebles if you think I rate the Jones-Calzaghe fight that highly. All too often, the screeching wailing counter-argument against these fights is that they "make good business sense". :shit:

That said I loved the fact that the fight ultimately came off, the HBO commentary will be a source of inspiration to me till the day I die. Sort of like a celluloid-audio rap-sheet against Max Kellerman.

I'm not going to beat it to death, but Calzaghe deserved some credit for beating Jones. He basically stood in front of the guy and dared him to hit him. For all the guys who beat Jones, none of them did that. Jones would throwing shots and missing.

The point about Tyson was that there is credit to be derived from beating people who are not at their best. Was Ali a shell? Of course he was. But he was also favourite. Spinks knew none of this. All he knew was he was facing a legend favoured to beat him. Sometimes the hardest part of a fight is realizing that you are in with a chance. Sort of like it being easy to hurt a guy, but harder to realize you have him hurt. Guys like Spinks and Douglas could never have won unless they had showed up believing they could. The delapidated state of their respective opponent shouldn't really detract from that after the fact. Nobody thought Roy would be offered free shots by Joe Cal and be made to miss over and over and over.

 

I dont consider any of RJJ's fights past the Tarver fights relevant. That was not the real RJJ fighting. Just someone who was seriously diminished and was trying to recapture past glory.

 

the Tyson - Ruddock stuff is interesting


on a similar note..Gerald McClellan said he had headaches since the first Julian Jackson fight