Fighters you think should've been fighters of the year but never were....

No he didn't. You can keep saying it, but it doesn't make it true.

A fight being closer on the cards doesn't mean it was more troubling. Roy Jones had many moments of real danger in that fight. All Toney had was 12 rounds of him punching Jirov in the face whenever he felt like throwing.

 

The violent way Toney beat Holyfield, who was essentially even money with Ruiz shortly before, made those fights a wash. Although I guess Holyfield has just been dominated by Byrd. Meh.

 

Did you even watch both fights? Jirov/Toney was give and take in a FOY candidate. Jirov had his moments for sure.

 

RJJ was a 175 pound fighter who went up two weight classes. Toney went up in just one weight class to face Holyfield. Holyfield was obviously done at that point too.

Roy had just become the first fighter in 100 years to go up to heavy and win a title after starting out as a middleweight. The accomplishment was and still is historic.

 

Of course Jirov had his moments. His style dictates that he wins rounds against anyone simply through aggression and activity. Combine that with Toney's fatass and it amounts to a spurt fight for Toney. Whenever Toney punched, he landed and hurt Jirov.

Toney as NEVER in any danger physically in that fight. Not once. Jones had multiple vs Tarver.

 

2005 Fighter of the year,.. should have been awarded to none other than Jermaine Taylor. :hammert:

 

toney/jirov and jones/tarver were both close and competitive fights, but toney knocking down jirov and nearly knocking him out in the 12th made it more impressive than jones digging deep in spurts to pull out a close decision.

had roy fought tarver and then beat ruiz, that would've increased his chances at winning fighter of the year.

plus, tarver appeared to receive more credit than roy solely based on the fact that he was actually competitive. roy, instead, got shitted on by his haters and critics for not winning in an impressive fashion.

 

Jones-Tarver 1 was closer than Toney-Jirov on the official cards, and appropriately so IMO.

I wasn't quite sure what Lederman was watching to have the fight even, then I remembered that he often favors the aggressor even if the aggressor eats the majority of the clean shots rather than takes them. Jones won 115-113 on my card, while I felt Toney won by a wider margin than that.

However I can definitely see the argument for Jones being more deserving of Fighter of the Year based on his achievements, seeing as he went up in weight and basically dominated a HW titleholder/contender, and beat a top 2 contender in Tarver at LHW.

 

Okay but what does that have to do with RJJ's wins over Ruiz and Tarver vs. Toney's wins vs Jirov and Holyfield. That's the comparison. I haven't seen your reasoning for Toney's wins being more impressive and more deserving of FOY 2003 honors over RJJ's. All I have read is you hinting at RJJ having more "trouble" in the Tarver fight, while forgetting about the Ruiz whitewash.

 

That's the whole point I've been trying to make. RJJ got passed over in the 2003 FOY voting because he wasn't as dominant in the Tarver fight. RJJ received no credit for the Tarver win, though I really thought he gutted it out late. It's like the Ruiz win didn't mean anything either.

 

I never made an argument for Jones or Toney in 03. Someone said that Jones had an easier time than Toney, I took issue with that. Simple.

 

I also preferred Gomez-Arthur over Gatti-Ward 3.

 

John Ruiz. Any of the following years, 1569 BC, 1456 BC, 1566 BC.

 

Try Jermaine Taylor 2005,.. it's a delicious beverage you norse warf rat.

 

:laughing:

 

Roy Jones in 2003??

he ran from the entire heavyweight division to fight bum Tarver, and then almost lost to him

 

Hmmm..Shane beat Oscar in 2000. Fighter of the year in 2000 was Felix Trinidad.

Please tell me why Shane should have got it over Tito who had moved up from 147 and beaten David Reid and Vargas, both previously undefeated (virtually unifying the 154lb division) in that year?

 

ld:

 

it's close. i guess Tito deserved it.

 

?
hindight is a lovely thing isn't it Joe...but at the time Jones was thought to have ducked the entire heavyweight division, thus proving that the Ruiz fight was a calculated handpicked move..pure opportunistic fight he knew he could win over a crap guy who happened to hold a paper title
can't get fighter of the year for that shit!


Toney beat Jirov who was the man at cruiser...and then beat Holy who was Ruiz's equal at the time

 

Please. Guys were saying that Roy wouldn't fight Ruiz up until the bell rang. AFTER the fight, it was a mismatched and handpicked fight.

Then the same people went on to say that RJJ was ducking Holyfield (negotiations fell through) to fight Tarver:laughing:

 

Tarver was considered the easy way out for Roy at the time.

 

Yeah, easy to drop 20 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks and take on the light heavyweight champion. ld:

 

You don't have a clue. Doesn't surprise me.

 

Yeah, it's easy to drop 20 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks.ld:

The same people that considered Tarver the easy way out actually said that RJJ moved to heavyweight to avoid Tarver. Which was it?ld:

 

That isn't true at all.

 

What the fuck?

MTF :laughing:

 

Wasn't there talk of Roy fighting Lewis after the Ruiz fight? I mean, when you say that Roy 'ducked' the entire HW division, you can only mean Lewis seeing as that, in 2003, he WAS the entire HW division...

MTF :dunno:

 

the BWAA and The Ring have agreed on Fighter of the Year in every year since 2000, and it's tough to make a case for any other fighter in those years.

Vic Darchinyan had a terrific year in 2008, but even if his in-ring achievements were better than that of Pacquaio, the significance factor was impossible to overlook.

I forget who else was up for FOTY in 2003 besides Toney. Ricardo Mayorga was a leading candidate until he lost to Cory Spinks. I agree that Roy's year was grossly overlooked - even more disgraceful was that The Ring listed Antonio Tarver in their honorable mention section and omitting Roy altogether.

Depending on who we considered FOTY prior to and including 1999, there are plenty of names to be considered. but not sure which list is considered the consensus...

 

He beat the unbeatable,.. so much so that people were too bitter to award him fighter of the year, it only adds to the evidence. :nono: