Is Jones vs. Hopkins worth paying $49.95 to see?

By Chris Williams: I was shocked recently when I saw that the old timers fight between Roy Jones Jr. (54-6, 40 KO’s) vs. Bernard Hopkins (50-5-1, 32 KO’s) is going for a whopping $49.95. Good God, that is way too high for this fight. The bout, which will be taking place on April 3rd at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, looks to me like it should go for 1/4th of that price. I could see paying $10 to $15 to see a Hopkins-Jones fight, because after all, both of these old guys are relics from another era, but to ask for $50 to see this? No way.

That’s a lot of money in this economy, and I can’t see any reason to want to plunk down that kind of change for a fight that has no real meaning to it other than bragging rights for one of them. And to look at how badly the 41-year-old Jones has deteriorated as a fighter in the past six years, I think it’s sad to be asking for that kind of money. I could see paying $50 to see a price Jones and Hopkins go at it for 12 rounds, but not two guys that over 40 and one of them, Hopkins, in his mid 40s.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Hopkins face Chad Dawson for maybe half of that, but not $50 to see Hopkins fight Jones. What is that? Jones just go spanked in his last fight against Danny Green in December, losing by a 1st round knockout. I don’t care how much Hopkins wants to make excuses for Jones about the defeat. The fact of the matter is Jones got knocked down and taken out by Green in the 1st round.

This wasn’t the first time Jones has been knocked out, incidentally. The dude has been stopped two other times, once by Antonio Tarver and another time by Glen Johnson in 2004. I don’t want to pay to see Jones fight at this point in his career, even if I did like his as a fighter earlier in his career. It would be like paying to see the Batmobile something. What point is there to pay big bank to see a guy that’s not fighting at his optimal level anymore.

It isn’t like you can give any real significance to the winner of the fight. It’s likely to be Hopkins, but who cares? He lost to Jones in their primes while Roy was fighting with only one hand because of an injury. If Hopkins was to win and then go after Chad Dawson, Tavoris Cloud or Jean Pascal, the three best fighters in the light heavyweight division, I would be mildly interested in seeing the Jones-Hopkins bout. But I seriously doubt Hopkins is going to try and fight any of those guys.

And I still wouldn’t want to pay $50 to see Hopkins beat up on a withered away Jones. I know who’s going to win already. It’s going to be Hopkins, but so what? Everybody knows Jones is faded beyond the point of no return, so what point is there in having to pay a fortune to see the fight? Man, this fight should be like in the $10 range, if not free.

I don’t know that I would want to pay even $10 to see it, personally. I think I would feel sorry for Jones afterwards. I would like to see him win, and it might be entertaining if he could somehow pull out a win, but the chances of that happening are probably about as good as winning the lottery. Hopkins is still fighting at too high of a level for him to lose to Jones. For whatever reason, Jones just didn’t age as well as Hopkins did.

In looking at them, they both look about the same age, but Hopkins is a lot stronger at this point and he can still take a big shot without going down. You can’t say the same thing for Jones. After being stopped by Tarver and Johnson, he’s been mostly steering clear of big punchers until meeting up with Green in December of 2009.

I knew Jones was going be knocked out the moment that fight was announced. I don’t know what Jones was thinking by taking that fight. Green is even a bigger puncher than Tarver and Johnson, and I figured the bout wouldn’t go last longer than six rounds. It turns out I was right.

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