Four-weight world champion, Roy Jones Jr, has revealed his pick as to who was his ‘toughest’ opponent, after a seventy-six fight career that saw him fight all the way from super-welterweight to heavyweight.
Jones defeated many of boxing’s legends, winning the IBF middleweight world title against Bernard Hopkins in 1993, defeating James Toney for the IBF super-middleweight crown just two years later, knocking out Montell Griffin for the WBC light-heavyweight world title and eventually defeating John Ruiz in 2003 to become the only fighter in history to begin his career at 154lbs and win a heavyweight title.
Despite ending his career with ten losses, ‘Captain Hook’ told RealLyfe Productions that James Toney was by far his toughest opponent, regardless of the fact that Jones dominated his fellow American in a comfortable unanimous-decision victory.
“The toughest dude that I ever fought was, I’m not going to lie to you, I’ll keep it real, James Toney is the toughest dude that I ever fought. People can say what they want to say, James Toney was a beast.
It’s so bad that the guys in the U.K., Steve Collins, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank Snr, they had a trilogy going on, he got on T.V. and called all of them you-know-what’s, and nobody did anything about it. That’s how much they feared him, that’s how cold this dude was.
James Toney was 44-0 when I fought him, it wasn’t no game. He was jumping on them inside the ring and outside the ring, he was the truth, trust me.”
These days, the BWAA 1990’s Fighter of the Decade, Jones, remains active in the sport, recently making an unsuccessful comeback against Anthony Pettis and training Chris Eubank Jr for his first fight against Liam Smith.