Consensus Be Damned: Hopkins-Jones II a Must-See Fight
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - OK folks, I’ve heard all the commentary about this Saturday night. How they’re far too old to be relevant. How one’s seriously jeopardizing his legacy. How nobody will buy the premise of two men settling a 17-year-old score that could have been erased in half that. Forget “The Rivals.” It’d more accurately be promoted as “The Colossal Waste of Time,” sponsored by Geritol. And it’s come both from voices I respect and the requisite contrarian blowhards. Make no mistake, I hear it all. But I still don’t care. Because when Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. at last head toward a Mandalay Bay ring with designs on hitting each other with something besides insults, the event will have two very important attributes no other fight this century has been able to boast. Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr., to be exact. And if you’re of a certain age bracket like me, that’s all that really matters. Needless to say, I concede to the younger set that neither man is what he used to be. The Hopkins of today might struggle with the truly elite in his weight class – particularly one Chad Dawson. And the Jones of today has already been exposed as subordinate to several once beneath him – specifically Danny Green, Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver.