BoxRec

I've never heard Junior Jones' name come up when talking about potential hall of famers. With three wins against hall of famers - two against Marco Antonio Barerra and one against Orlando Canizales - he is very close in my opinion.

His record is a good one at 50-6. He was a champion at two weights.

Pretty good fighter as I recall.

i think a lot of people consider mab to have been pre prime and hence only give jones so much credit for those wins

He'd fall short and deservedly so IMO but he's a solid candidate. He was a very good fighter. He hasn't even made the ballot which is a bit unfair IMO but then again there's some excellent Bantamweight's that haven't made the ballot from the damn near great - Rafael Herrera, Raul "Raton" Macias, Jose Becerra, Rodolfo Martinez to the excellent top tier - Chucho Castillo, Jose Medel, Alfonso Zamora. Never seen any on the ballot which is unfortunate.

Jones had some good peaks. Barrera may have become a better fighter after the Jones fights but he still still a terror on a great run who was dominating everyone and shooting up the pound for pound rankings. Jones stopped him in a stunning upset and then clearly outpointed him. There's been equal or lesser fighters who got in the hall of fame for a big signature win beating guys not as good as Barrera. I think Canizales was a little past his best when Jones beat him and it does hurt Jones' standing that directly after the Barrera wins he fell apart against McKinney who was also past his best days and he also lost his first world title to a journeyman and then was stopped by another one shortly after.

His lack of a good title run and relatively short prime take him out of true consideration IMO. Daniel Zaragoza was a modern guy that was not a particularly great fighter who didn't have long reigns but got in because he just came back so many times to upset the odds and had a very long career. Jones' peak was probably considered higher as was his signature win but Zaragoza obviously had the better career.

I don't really think there's any excuse to be had for MAB. He lost, convincingly to a style he simply couldn't figure out. The pre-prime excuse doesn't cut it. He looked as good as I've ever seen him leading up to that first bout. Those fights showed his limitations to me. Just seems his fans tend to completely overlook them when reminiscing about him. Considering most people are fans of his, you just don't get a whole lot of discussion on this topic, period.

Otherwise I agree with the post above mine.

Agree that you can't use the pre-prime excuse for Barrera. He had been a pro for 7 years and had 43 fights already.
I guess you could make some sort of case for Jones for the Hall of Fame. However, I just don't think overall he did quite enough. The Barrera wins help his case, but he needs more.

I think he’s just not popular enough. Besides the obvious choices, the Hall of Fame is always subjective. I always liked Jones’ fights, you never knew what was going to happen.

Nah I don't think Junior Jones is a Hall of Famer. I give him full credit for the Barrera wins, but you need more than one major name to have victories over to warrant a Hall of Fame spot.

Very good fighter though, and he has the honor of being one of those guys that just "had the number" of a Hall of Famer as he did with Barrera.