At the height of his career, Roy Jones Jr was one of the most dominant fighters on the planet.
After capturing an Olympic Silver Medal at the 1988 Games in Seoul, Jones entered the paid ranks and managed to establish himself as a household name in no time at all.
He would go on to win world titles in four divisions throughout his tenure, but perhaps the most memorable moment of his exceptional career came in 2003 when he made the move up to heavyweight to dethrone WBA champion John Ruiz.
Since his retirement from the sport – something he keeps teasing is only temporary – Jones has spent time working as a trainer as well as an analyst, where he has shared his insightful opinion on some of the biggest names in the sport.
In an interview with All The Smoke Fight, Jones gave plaudits to Japanese sensation Naoya Inoue but claims that his lack of quality opposition has hampered his chances of sitting at the top of the pound-for-pound list.
“There’s another tornado brewing over there by the name of Inoue. That is a bad dude, you hear me? Say what you want, I know he way over there in Japan, but that is a bad dude. We don’t give him credit cause we don’t see him that much.
That dude right there? I think that dude really is pound-for-pound number one, he just don’t have the competition at that weight class to get it right now and the United States don’t know him cause we don’t have big fighters in his weight class over here. The one that we did have [Stephen Fulton] look what he did to him.”
Jones goes on to name Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford as the best fighter on the planet, paying homage to the 37-year-old from Omaha because of his level of opposition.
“[Inoue] really number one but because he doesn’t have the opposition to prove it I gotta leave Bud there. And the reason I leave Bud there is because he was there for so long with the same problem Inoue had – he had no opponents to be able to prove it.”
‘Bud’ Crawford is just several months away from a monumental showdown with Canelo Alvarez, as he bids to become an undisputed champion in a third weight class.
