{"id":334319,"date":"2025-12-25T03:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T03:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/334319\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T03:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T03:23:07","slug":"roy-jones-jr-considers-just-one-fighter-better-than-himself-in-his-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/334319\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr considers just one fighter better than himself in his prime"},"content":{"rendered":"

A prime Roy Jones Jr<\/a> is, for many, the greatest fighter of all time, but even the man himself has admitted to being second-best to one extraordinary individual.<\/p>\n

Whether Jones reached his peak at super-middleweight or light-heavyweight is perhaps up for debate, but his performances in both divisions nonetheless cemented him as a pound-for-pound legend.<\/a><\/p>\n

The American secured arguably his most notable win at 168lbs against James Toney<\/a>, when his sheer explosiveness and athleticism was enough to claim a unanimous decision in 1994.<\/p>\n

Even prior to that, Jones had captured the world middleweight title against Bernard Hopkins, outpointing him with just one hand, before eventually campaigning at a more comfortable weight of 175lbs.<\/p>\n

It was there where stunning victories over the likes of Antonio Tarver and Virgil Hill established him as perhaps the greatest light-heavyweight of all time, his incredible speed often making for a largely one-sided affair.<\/p>\n

But still, Jones believes that one man \u2013 and one man only \u2013 should be regarded as the more well-rounded competitor in his prime.<\/p>\n

While speaking with ATSFight<\/a>, the former multi-weight world champion was asked whether Pernell Whitaker was a better fighter in his prime, to which he said: \u201c[It\u2019s] close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, after dismissing the likes of Lennox Lewis and Oleksandr Usyk, Jones interjected as soon as he heard the name \u2018Muhammad Ali\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you can stop \u2013 that\u2019s the only place you can stop at. The rest of them are awesome, they\u2019re great fighters, but [not better than him].<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the ring, it\u2019s still questionable, but [Ali\u2019s] always going to be the greatest to me, because he laid the platform for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout that platform, I\u2019d have never been me, so he\u2019ll always be the GOAT in my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Ali is widely regarded as one of the all-time greats, especially when considering his legacy-defining triumphs over heavyweights such as George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and Sonny Liston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prime Roy Jones Jr is, for many, the greatest fighter of all time, but even the man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-334319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}