Tony Bellew Ranks Roy Jones Jr Above Usyk as Most Complete Ever

Tony Bellew has picked his most complete fighter of all time, and it isn't the man who just went 25-0 and cleaned out the heavyweight division. Speaking to Playbook Boxing, the former cruiserweight champion put a prime Roy Jones Jr above both Oleksandr Usyk and Sugar Ray Leonard, arguing Jones is the only fighter he's ever seen master every single part of the game.

That's a bold call given the company. Usyk sits at 25-0 (16 KO) as the lineal heavyweight king, having beaten Tyson Fury (36-2-1) and Anthony Joshua (29-4) to prove he's the best big man of his era. Leonard's résumé speaks for itself: wins over Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler, the rest of the fabled Four Kings. Bellew rates both. He just thinks they fall short on small details Jones didn't.

Why Jones Gets the Nod

Bellew's case rests on the version of Jones who ran roughshod through multiple weight classes. Jones took the IBF middleweight title off Bernard Hopkins in 1993, then added scalps like James Toney and Mike McCallum. He kept climbing until he dethroned John Ruiz for the WBA heavyweight belt in 2003, becoming a genuine three-division world champion in the process.

That heavyweight leap is the crux of the argument. Bellew said if Jones had simply walked away after beating Ruiz, nobody would even question the claim. He described Jones as a fighter he's never seen the likes of for skill and athleticism, with Usyk and Leonard pushing him close but never quite level.

The One Blot Bellew Skips Past

There's a wrinkle Bellew acknowledges without dwelling on. After the Ruiz win, Jones dropped back down to 175lbs and scraped a majority decision over Antonio Tarver, then got stopped inside two rounds in the immediate rematch. Bellew's point is that cutting back down after a heavyweight run almost never works cleanly. In his eyes, only Floyd Mayweather ever pulled off dropping weight and staying healthy.

It's a debate with no clean answer, which is exactly why it keeps getting had. Usyk's unbeaten run and his heavyweight double over Fury and Joshua make him the modern benchmark. But for Bellew, peak Jones remains the ceiling for what a complete fighter looks like, small imperfections in the greats around him doing the rest of the arguing.