The styles of Prince Naseem and Roy Jones JR - boxing evolution or devolution?

mozfonky said:
i saw sapp before this in my gym, i was disgusted that he was given so much push, dude really had nothing, which we all saw later. No reason in hell he should have even been competitive, let alone winning. I think that said a lot about the lack of quality in the mma world. It's better, clearly, but still pretty bad in could you see sapp competing in boxing, even in the poor era of the 00's. or how about basketball, baseball, hockey. Only in that sport could some guy like him come along like that. And don't forget, frank shamrock won his very first fight over the supposedly elite Bas Rutten, something is not right there.
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Who knows what you were really seeing in Japanese MMA though?
 
you have a point there, fight fixing was as common as anything at the time. I never heard any suspiciouns about those fights though and if memoryserves, they looked pretty sloppy and real.
 
mozfonky said:
but have you wondered what would have happened had roy fought someone who was willing to throw punches back every single time roy came close? I never saw anyone who would do that with him until tarver. would roy have been as successful had he fought the ballsy guys of other eras? I don't think so. Like I said, I really don't know what to make of him, the most likely thing is to say the talent pool wasn't really that deep, guys didn't come to win with him. You take a guy like ali who with all his talent and rep and you had guys fight the fight of their lives against him, mediocre guys fought better than they ever would before or since with him, that wasn't the case with roy. Anyway, I am a huge roy fan and think he is a true gentleman who deserves his due.
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Who do you think beats Roy? I also don't think tarver is a good example bc roy was getting slower at that time already. You see a lot of Roy fights where the other guy tries to be aggressive and then boom ktfo
 
mozfonky said:
you have a point there, fight fixing was as common as anything at the time. I never heard any suspiciouns about those fights though and if memoryserves, they looked pretty sloppy and real.
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Too many pro wrestlers on japanese cards for me to not be suspicious, not to mention that some Pride cards were admittedly fixed.
 
early pride definitely had a lot of fixed fights. Goodridge said that pre-2000 it was 90% fixed and that after that it was 90% unfixed
 
Seano said:
Too many pro wrestlers on japanese cards for me to not be suspicious, not to mention that some Pride cards were admittedly fixed.
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They promoted steroid use essentially and paid people in duffel bags full of cash haha anything is possible.
 
mozfonky said:
Ingle is an interesting guy but he hoards credit from Herol Graham for the style and he is not the kind of guy I would want to be involved with if I were a fighter. When the money thing turned nasty with Hamed he still wanted to collect and worked Hamed's corner even though there was bad blood. In my mind, the older man should have more wisdom and maturity than that and too often with trainers, they take the low road right along with their young knucklehead fighters. Anyway, the Dempsey revolution was a style that had elements that were useful for any human being. The ingle style should be banished, I've said it before it's too unpredictable for both fighters with those lunges, Naseem knocked lots of men out and herol Graham gave great fighters nightmares but both of them took shots because of that unpredictability. Naseem getting knocked down and hurt in many of his fights, Graham being devestatingly kayoed by Jackson and losing to the much sounder Mccallum.
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The Ingle style lives on in Kell Brook and Kid Galahad. It's evolved and is less flash but still highly effective seeing how well Kell Brook has done so far.
 
WadCheber said:
I don't think I've ever seen Hamed seriously hurt (a little swelling in three fights, a couple of bloody noses, and that's it, aside from the damage to his hands - which he did to himself, rather than having it done to him by his opponents), and in his 37 pro fights, he fell down many times, but I don't think he was actually knocked down more than 6 times.

I don't remember ever seeing him wobbly after a punch, even a knockdown. In fact, if you watch his first 20 fights, you'll keep hearing the commentators saying that they wonder what will happen when someone finally puts some pressure on him or hurts him, because it hadn't happened yet.
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You're right Hamed was never hurt, not even with the mauling Barrera gave him was he wobbled. He had an iron jaw and most times he got put down it was more to do with balance then being hurt. He was an extremely talented fighter he just didn't have the heart for it. After his first loss he pretty much quit. He also said he'd never want his sons to box as it was just too hard.
 
mozfonky said:
You think so? why? they say he was actually the best gracie. then they have the legendary rolls who rickson said was the last guy to tap him. .
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Everyone says Rolls was the best Gracie ever. He was the most athletically gifted of the Gracies. Shame he died so young.
 
I think it's a huge disservice to say that Hamed's and RJJ's styles relied mostly on fast reflexes and speed.

For example, RJJ's lead right hand landed consistently because he made certain adjustments that shaved off split seconds off the wind-up for the punch. Not just because he was fast.
 
PnA was ridiculous. He had crazy head movement power and could hit from the most awkward angles when mostly everybody would be off balanced.
 
wowspare said:
I think it's a huge disservice to say that Hamed's and RJJ's styles relied mostly on fast reflexes and speed.

For example, RJJ's lead right hand landed consistently because he made certain adjustments that shaved off split seconds off the wind-up for the punch. Not just because he was fast.
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True but the athleticism talent and skill set was their in youth. You cannot fight that way forever. Skills like Hopkins and Toney are hardwired into them years later. Flashes of brilliancy like Spider is short lived. JJ too. Hopefully he comes back strong. He peaked early. Tysons did too.
 
emax said:
In terms of fighting prowess, it is very hard to tell and there's no easy answer. In terms of character and personality, a devolution for sure - Naseem may have gotten on a lot of people's nerves, but at the very least he knew not to take himself obscenely seriously the way Jones Jr does. Naseem entertained people with his antics, Jones Jr made them cringe like they were hearing a car alarm scratched across a chalkboard. And still does.
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If he remained humble at his best him getting ktfo would be less a spectacular
 
I think the proven styles of the golden age of boxing are superior. Those guys used great athleticism and reflexes to dominate but once they began to slow down or fight out of shape their failings were more obvious.
 
Jones Jr. In his physical prime was, as his song stated....unstoppable. Him moving up in weight then going back down most certainly didnt help, and age is always a fighters worst enemy if the body isnt taken care of as it should be, so his style in his prime was the best thing since sliced bread.

Had he retired immediately after beating ruiz, Mayweather woulda been an after thought for p4p greatness.

As for Naseem, even Emanuel Steward stated that during the end, his head was barely in the game...like training and studying tapes wasnt important anymore.
 
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