{"id":727500,"date":"2026-01-29T01:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/727500\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:15:08","slug":"roy-jones-jr-names-the-hardest-puncher-he-faced-in-legendary-76-fight-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/727500\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr names the hardest puncher he faced in legendary 76-fight career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy Jones Jr<\/a> gave a rather surprising response when asked to name the hardest hitter he ever came up against.<\/p>\n

The Hall of Famer made his mark on the middle, super-middle and light-heavyweight divisions, before dethroning WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz<\/a> in 2003.<\/p>\n

Despite hitting the scales at just 193lbs, a severely undersized Jones nonetheless dominated their contest from start to finish and claimed a unanimous decision victory.<\/p>\n

Based on size alone, many would suspect that Ruiz, who ended 30 of his 44 professional victories inside the distance, was the biggest puncher that Jones faced.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, Antonio Tarver was also a heavy-handed puncher who shared three fights with the four-division world champion at 175lbs.<\/p>\n

Despite losing their first encounter via a majority decision in 2003, Tarver exacted his revenge by securing a second-round stoppage victory the following year.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Magic Man\u2019 then ended their trilogy with a unanimous decision win in 2005, but it was nearly a decade earlier that Jones recalls encountering his hardest-hitting opponent.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Ring Magazine<\/a> in a \u2018Best I Faced\u2019 feature, Jones names Merqui Sosa, who he stopped in the second round in 1996<\/a>, as the most powerful fighter he faced.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMerqui Sosa was a very powerful guy. You couldn\u2019t push him back; he didn\u2019t give up anything in the ring. I had to get him out of there early. He was very strong and wasn\u2019t planning on going nowhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cMerqui missed me with a shot that almost buckled my knees. If that had landed it would have been different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Wow, this guy\u2019s trying to kill [me]!\u2019 I went to work on him after that and got the fight over. Tarver had good punching power, but he didn\u2019t punch harder than Merqui Sosa.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Prior to his fight with Jones, Sosa had lost a split decision to James Toney after suffering an early knockdown and being docked a point for low blows.<\/p>\n

And despite never becoming a world champion, the Dominican banger nonetheless ended his career with a formidable record of 34-9-2 (27 KOs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr gave a rather surprising response when asked to name the hardest hitter he ever came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-727500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115975744560400620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}