Roy Jones Jr. says he thinks Dmitry Bivol would have been a more formidable fight for during his career than Artur Beterbiev while fighting at light heavyweight.
Jones Jr. states that WBA 175-lb champion Bivol (22-0, 11 KOs) was a similar mobile fighter to himself, and he would have had to solve his puzzle to beat him.
In contrast, Roy Jr. says IBF, WBC & WBO champion Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) wouldn’t have required solving a puzzle because he would have been coming straight at him, and it would be just a matter of hitting him first.
What Roy Jr. isn’t saying is that he’d already lost much of his hand speed when he moved up to light heavyweight in 1996, and his punch resistance rapidly disappeared.
If Jones Jr. were to beat a fighter like Beterbiev, he would have had to do it soon after moving up in weight from 168 because he couldn’t take a punch.
Bivol: The Mirror Image
“Bivol gives me more trouble because he thinks like I thought, and he uses his feet like I use my feet. Not quite as good, but he does use his feet a lot. He doesn’t have an arsenal, but he does think a lot, and he does his feet a lot,” said Roy Jones Jr. to Fighthype about how he would have had more trouble fighting Dmitry Bivol than he would Artur Beterbiev at light heavyweight.
Bivol fights nothing like the pot-shot artist Roy Jones Jr, nothing like him. Jones used his hand speed to win fights, throwing single punches. Once his speed began to disappear, he was easy prey for his opposition because he lacked the power and technical skills to fall back on.
Beterbiev: The Straightforward Threat
“Artur is going to bring it right to me, and Artur has been down two or three times already,” said Jones Jr. “You come right to me, and I touch your chin, then you woke up in my prime. I feel like there would have been no puzzle to figure out.”
It would have been interesting to see a semi-prime Jones Jr. at light heavyweight fighting Beterbiev, but it might not have gone well for Roy.
“He’s coming, and he’s trying to knock me out. You got to get him first, and I was great at getting you first. That’s kind of what I did,” said Jones Jr.
