Ambling Alp II,
Did a rundown of Jones and the fighters mentioned. Looked at when they were ranked or champion in the same weight classes as Jones.
First off, it's nice to debate with you.
Regarding the fighters you've mentioned, that's cool, but you have to know what was happening behind the scenes etc at the time.
At middleweight, Collins and McClellan were viable in 1994.. However, it was a pretty short period of time and Jones did defend the title against Thomas Tate who was respectable. Too much of a stretch to say that Jones avoided anyone.
Collins wasn't viable in 1994. Yes, he was at MW, but being at MW and being viable are 2 completely different things. At that point, he'd recently lost all of his big fights to McCallum, Johnson and Kalambay, and without being disrespectful to anyone, he was fighting B and C class fighters in England. Why would Roy have fought him? He was the IBF champ looking at fighting Toney. It was totally unrealistic, which is what I class as not being viable. There were different networks involved, different promoters, with the fighters fighting in different countries and with no big money at stake. A complete no go.
Regarding Gerald, like I said previously, there was only really a very short window for that to have possibly happened at MW.
At super middle, Collins was viable in 1995 and 1996, as was Nunn,. Benn was in 1995, Reid in 1996. You can't fight everybody, but it seems that Jones could have taken on better competition than he did.
From the articles and interviews that I've read from 1995, it appears that Don King wanted future options on Roy, and Roy and his handlers, The Levin Bros, wouldn't allow it.
In 1996, Frankie Liles turned down a career high pay day to fight Roy. And that has been confirmed by both Seth Abraham and Lou DiBella of HBO, and Frankie's manager at the time, Jack O'Halloran. O'Halloran states that they had a great fight lined up, but Frankie blew it by going back and asking for more.
HBO also confirmed that Roy had made a 7 figure offer to Collins in 1996, but he was tied up with Benn at that point.
Michael Nunn was a great fighter, but by 1994, he'd lost to Frankie Liles and Steve Little, and he didn't have a belt.
Robin Reid wasn't viable at all in 1996. He'd fought nobody of note until he'd beaten Vincenzo Nardiello for the WBC belt. But Roy had already committed to moving up to LHW to fight Mike McCallum at that point.
It was a real shame those fights didn't materialise. But when Roy realised they weren't going to happen, he decided to move up to LHW for a fresh challenge. Which meant that guys like Collins unfortunately got left behind.
It is a light heavyweight where it's gets apparent that he did not want to take on a challenge. Could have taken on Nunn in 1998 or 1999.
That's a complete myth.
Regarding Nunn, yes, you could say he should never have messed him around and he should have fought him as he was his mandatory. But to be fair, after beating Griffin in devastating fashion in their rematch, Roy was looking to cash in on a huge HW fight. He actually signed to fight James Douglas early in 1998 for $6m. But as you're probably aware, after not speaking to Roy for almost 6 years, his father stepped forward and wouldn't allow him to go through with it due to James' size. So Roy backed off. But he then met Evander Holyfield in Atlanta to discuss a fight if Evander was interested. Evander's attorney, Jim Thomas, has confirmed the meeting in a book that he published in 1995, that detailed his memoirs as Evander's attorney for 13 years. Thomas states that Evander respectfully turned down the proposal, as at the time, he felt as though he was in in a no-win situation. So it appears that Roy did genuinely want a big money HW fight at that point. As you probably already know, when Roy relinquished his WBC LHW belt, Nunn fought Graciano for it in a vacant title match up. But even though Graciano beat Nunn, upon his return to LHW, the WBC unbelievably handed Roy his belt back. Which resulted in Graciano taking the WBC to court and suing them for millions of dollars.
Then there is the obvious one: Michalezewski. Anytime form 1997-2003 this would have been by the biggest light heavyweight. Never happened. Instead Jones fought one stiff after another. There is enough blame to go around. But the bottom line is that Jones should have been screaming for the fight; not acting as if DM did not exist. This will always tarnish his legacy.
This fight should have happened. Basically, it didn't due to neither fighter wanting to travel. Because Dariusz had been unfairly stripped of 2 of his belts, many people thought that Roy should have gone to Germany for the fight. But to be fair to Roy, he had nothing to do with Dariusz being stripped of his titles, he was considered the best fighter in the world, he had all 3 major titles at the time of negotiations, and he'd been scarred from the 88 Olympics. So I could see things from both sides. But I can tell you that serious efforts were made by Kerry Davis of HBO to try and bring Dariusz to the States.
Roy didn't fight stiff after stiff at LHW. He fought some good fighters. They included: Griffin, Hill, Johnson, Harding, Woods, and Tarver. Also, as well as trying to get Dariusz in the ring, Roy and HBO tried to secure a rematch with Bernard Hopkins in 2002, for a 168 CW. Mark Taffet of HBO has confirmed that Bernard was offered $6m, but he turned it down and demanded $10m, even though Roy already held a win over him, and he'd have had to have moved down in weight.
Again, it's a complete myth to say that Roy didn't want to challenge himself at LHW. After he'd unified the division and he couldn't fight Dariusz or Bernard, he then went up to HW to fight Ruiz. Although Ruiz wasn't a great HW, he was tough and effective, and he weighed 235 pounds. As you know, after he fought Ruiz, he then dropped back to LHW, losing actual muscle in the process, to face an extremely motivated Antonio Tarver. Those weren't the actions of a fighter who wanted to play it safe against easy opposition. Roy did challenge himself, and you also have to note that after he'd unified the division against Reggie Johnson in 1999, he then had mandatory obligations from all 3 of the main Org's. Guys like Glen Kelly and Ricky Frazier were mandatories. I think that Roy only ever fought about 7 low level, keep busy fights whilst his advisors and HBO tried to make him the biggest fights out there behind the scenes. If you look at the LHW rankings, Roy fought most of the top guys. There's a lot of people out there who share your opinion, who genuinely believe that Roy was just content to face low level mandatories for easy money, but I can assure you that that wasn't the case. Roy deserves a lot more credit than what he receives. He was an ambitious fighter. Even when he was way past his best, he fought guys like: Calzaghe, Hopkins and Lebedev.