A Look at The Potential Rematch Between Roy Jones Jr and Bernard Hopkins

With Roy Jones Jr’s recent humiliation of Jeff Lacy he is set to take on the best in the division again. Jone’s had steadily regained his reputation in the boxing world after suffering devastating back to back knockout losses to the hands of Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver many thought Roy Jones Jr’s career was over. To quote Roy Jones himself “Y’all musta forgot” that Roy Jones Jr was one of the best boxers in the world and he wasn’t going to quietly retire from the sport, he would fight back and so far it has worked well.

Since his losses Jones has gone 5-1, holdings wins over names such as Felix Trinidad and Jeff Lacy, Jones has tried his hardest to come back strong and he seems to have got his second  wind at 40 years old. But Jones hasn’t been the only man to make a comeback in the sport, wily 44 year old Bernard Hopkins has also gone through the efforts of winning back his repuation as a world class pugilist after his back to back losses to Jermain Taylor. Antonio Tarver, sensing that Hopkins was on his way out was one of the first men chomping at the bit to get a shot at the aging superstar. To everyones surprise Hopkins completely outboxed Tarver and sent his running with his tail between his legs. While Hopkins had beaten a top contender, it wasn’t generally thought that Hopkins was mounting any form of comeback, he simply still had the tools to beat the best boxers out there while his body found it harder and harder to compete, his brain was still good enough to get the job done.

As both Jones and Hopkins would steadily rebuild their reputations, both men would run into one bump in the road. Joe Calzaghe was set with the idea of beating the best fighters of our generation and both Jones and Hopkins were in his sights. He take on both men with perfect timing, fighting them as they were making their comebacks and not while it seemed that they were both about to retire. Calzaghe would beat both of the in ring legends to go on to retire with a perfect undeafeated record while both Jones and Hopkins would move on and try to continue to box. Hopkins would go on to beat Kelly Pavlik, a man who many thought was the future of the middleweight division and would have no trouble beating Hopkins. Bernard would
treat Pavlik to a boxing school by completely outboxing him in every aspect of the word, just as he had done to Antonio Tarver years earlier.

Now with Jones coming off of his win over Lacy and Hopkins coming off of his win over Pavlik, many boxing fans are sure that both men are going to meet in the ring before they retire. This isn’t just a case of two legends of the ring meeting up to see who is the better man, this is a case of revenge for Hopkins. Over a decade ago in 1993, Hopkins and Jones would fight for the IBF middleweight championship. Jones would completely outbox Hopkins to take the title and award Hopkins his second loss of his career. Since then the two men would never meet for a second time in the ring despite the fact that they would both become two of the most beloved fighters in America.

Surely these two men need to go head to head once again to prove, who was the greatest American Middleweight of our generation.