There's various reasons why these fights never came off.
Nigel Benn.
Nigel was desperate to fight Roy in the mid 90's, but Roy's handlers at the time, Fred and Stan Levin, didn't want to deal with Don King. King had Benn, and he wanted a three fight option on Roy. Roy wouldn't agree to it, although he was willing to negotiate a one fight deal. Neither would back down, and Nigel faded pretty quickly after his fight with Gerald.
Frankie Liles.
Liles was a good southpaw who beat Roy in the amateurs. He was the other major belt holder along with Benn. However, he was also a Don King fighter. I don't think Roy really wanted to fight him, but I believe he would have done if the circumstances were different. One of the main reasons Roy only briefly stayed at 168, is because he never really had a chance of unifying after Toney.
Chris Eubank.
Roy respected Chris and said he would have been a tough fight. But Chris has said numerous times that he never chased the big fights, and he was happy with his contracts on Sky and ITV. He never made any effort to fight Roy and the other big names.
Michael Nunn.
Nunn was a great fighter, and although he was faded in the late 90's, I believe Roy should have fought him when he became Roy's mandatory in 97 up at 175. But during Roy's stay at 168, Nunn only had 2 fights at the weight, one of which he lost to Liles. So a fight between the two at 168 was never really viable.
Charles Brewer.
Brewer had around 7 fights while Roy was at 168, losing 3 times to guys who weren't elite. There wasn't any demand at the time to see him fight Roy.
Gerald McClellan.
The G Man was a dangerous fighter, but he only had one fight at 168 during Roy's time there. That was sadly against Nigel Benn. Roy missed all the big names at 160 due to his Dad, Big Roy holding him back. Roy was fighting mainly nobodies while Gerald, Jackson, Toney and McCallum were all fighting each other. By the time Roy had beaten Hopkins for the vacant title, he'd already become too tight at the weight. After Hopkins, he was fighting at 164-167 so he moved up to 168 not long after. Maybe if the terrible tragedy with Benn hadn't have happened, they could have met at some point.
Steve Collins.
Maybe he should have fought Collins at 168, but like I mentioned earlier, after Roy has beaten Toney, he knew he couldn't unify. Collins was a tough warrior who deserves enormous respect for chasing Roy like he did, but he didn't have a major belt, and he wasn't a big name in America. He held the WBO belt (that wasn't respected back then, or even ranked by The Ring magazine) and his claim to fame was by beating faded versions of Benn and Eubank. His WBO belt wasn't enough to stop Roy from seeking a new challenge up at 175. It's a shame the fight never came off, along with most of the others that's been mentioned. Boxing politics rob fight fans of many great fights. I think Roy was at his absolute peak in 94/95 at 25/26, and I think he would have beaten all of the fighters mentioned. Styles make fights, and I think Benn and Gerald would have been dangerous, especially Benn for the first 5 to 6 rounds. But I believe Frankie Liles would have caused Roy the most problems out of all if those guys.
Thanks to everyone that has answered, I've enjoyed reading all of your comments.
Regards, Rob.
Damn good question, I guess the money vs risk factor just didn't make them good business decisions. I know for a fact Gerald McClellan would have been a lot even for Roy to take on and Jones would have been at serious risk of losing that one. The Europeans Benn, Collins and Eubank were always considered poor choices due to the tendency of European judging to favor Europeans and finding a neutral location was always a problem. Jones would have been a heavy favorite over most of the other including Nunn, Liles, Brewer but I think Gerald McClellan might have beat Roy.
-McClellan was mostly blind, deaf, and in a wheelchair by 1995.
-Benn and Eubank sadly had a network contract that didn't expire until looooong after they were past it and had no titles to their names.
-Steve Collins, eh, let's just be perfectly honest, never stood a chance in hell against a guy like Jones lol.
-Michael Nunn was possible in 1997 and was even talked about after Jones KO'd Griffin, but Jones took a larger (and IMO a more credible, full blown, proven light heavyweight opponent in Virgil Hill).
-Nobody had ANY clue who Charles Brewer was, and they probably still don't.
As for Liles, I have actually heard from a few reliable sources that Roy didn't want it with him. Maybe something that went back to their amateur days together? I'm not exactly sure why, as I'm pretty confident Roy would have mopped him up relatively easily as well.
I think these questions are very interesting in retrospect but people forget how Roy Jones was perceived at the time and if you notice these questions weren't really brought up at the time. The main reason RJJR didn't fight these guys is because they were basically all fighting and beating each other and Roy rarely fought outside of the US. I tend to think he still should have fought some of them but It seems the wisdom of the time was that non of them would have posed a real threat and because RJJR was not really looked at as a big guy people accepted the fact that LHW was a bigger challenge and general spectacle than him fighting any of the other SMWs.
Good question
Boxing is both business and politics. Most of the time, the consideration for making fights is money. No matter how great a match-up appears to be, if it ain't profitable then it won't be made. And fighters usually bow to the promoters in this regard. People just don't know how powerful promoters are. They'd say this fighter is ducking this or this fighter is avoiding that. What they don't know is that promoters make the fights and fighters just fight.
Because the guys you mention were way past there prime or were not fighting while Roy was at the top. Roy never ran from any one and you know it. I think you are trying to start something.
Charles Brewer
Gerald McClellan
Nigel Benn
Steve Collins
Frankie Liles
Chris Eubank
Michael Nunn
He didn't fight any of them while he was a super middleweight and then moved up to light heavyweight claiming there were no fights at 168.
What are your thoughts?
