Is it time for Jones and Hopkins to retire?

Last Saturday night was one of the worst boxing fights I’ve ever seen in my entire life. 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KO’s), looking many moons removed from his prime form, defeated 41-year-old Roy Jones Jr. (54-7, 40 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 117-110 and 117-110. The outcome was never in question from the very start, as Jones was unable to pull the trigger with his punches and just looked totally shot. I wasn’t going to buy the fight, but at the last second gave in and purchased the $49.95 card. Boy, was I sorry.


Jones saw the openings, but was unable to let his hands go with anything but a few harmless shots during the fight. It wasn’t that Jones was afraid to throw; It just seems like he’s lost his reflexes and can’t fire when he does see the opportunities in front of him. Hopkins, who may have a little left in the tank, but not much, dominated the fight – if you want to call it that – with his better punch output. However, Hopkins was far from impressive because of his ugly tendency to dive forward fight on the inside against Jones.

On the inside, Hopkins made it ugly, throwing rabbit punches, low blows and not really landing with anything that was meaningful. Jones, too, was busy responding with his own rabbit shots, and succeeded in knocking Hopkins to the canvas with them twice in the fight. Neither of the rabbit punches that Jones threw seemed to be all that hard, but Hopkins reacted as if he had been leveled by a howitzer. He went down both times he was hit, and stayed down for a considerable amount of time.

Jones lost a point for the first rabbit punch in the 6th. Hopkins stayed down for ever two minutes clutching his head while Jones walked around the ring laughing and talking to the crowd. When Hopkins did get up, he rushed Jones and threw a flurry of punches, all but one missing badly. The two fighters continued to mix it up well after the bell and had to be separated.

This flurry from Hopkins was a normal part of his game when he was younger, and it was sad to see him only able to fight like that when he was angered. In the 7th, Hopkins regained his composure and continued to control the fight with his smothering offense. Hopkins still didn’t throw many punches and was missing more than few. Jones, for his part, could do little more than stick his left hand way out in front of him as if to keep Hopkins away. Jones rarely threw anything back in the 2nd half of the fight.

For that matter, Jones rarely threw any punches in the 1st half either. He just looked totally shot. I saw Jones’ first fight with Hopkins only this week, and it was so sad to see how much Jones has deteriorated in the past 17 years. Despite fighting with only one good hand in their 1993 fight, Jones had blinding hand speed, and got the better of Hopkins in almost every exchange.

Jones was throwing punches back then and catching Hopkins clean again and again. Last Saturday night, Jones was like a statue, unable to move his arms and just poising all night long. He looked like all the fast twitch nerve fiber in his arms and shoulders had completely deteriorated to the point where he just couldn’t move them. In the end, both fighters looked horrible.

Hopkins got the win, but didn’t show that he’s got enough left to beat the top light heavyweight champions in the division. Hopkins will probably stick around and continue to fight, but he’s going to have to be very selective in choosing his fights or else he’ll start getting on a regular basis just like Jones. I would give Hopkins zero chance of beating Chad Dawson and not much chance of beating the other light heavyweight title holders either.

Hopkins is saying he wants to fight WBA heavyweight champion David Haye, but the British fighter isn’t at all interested, in particular after watching how bad Hopkins looked against Jones last Saturday night. I think both Jones and Hopkins need to consider retiring. I don’t know what they have left to prove. If they continue fighting, they’ll struggle unless they pick their opponents carefully.

Before this fight, Hopkins last two bouts have come against middleweights Kelly Pavlik and Enrique Ornelas. Before that, Hopkins fought a former light middleweight Winky Wright and then a super middleweight Joe Calzaghe. As you can see, Hopkins hasn’t been fightin