Jones vs. Hopkins in February? – News

By Boxing News - 09/23/2009 - Comments

jones453244548By Jim Dower: Roy Jones Jr. (54-5, 40 KO’s) could be facing Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KO’s) in rematch in February according to an interview by the 40-year-old Jones at Fight hype. Jones and Hopkins have come to an agreement of a 50-50 purse split for a February 2010 bout. Previously, Hopkins said that he wasn’t interested in fighting Jones unless Roy was willing to take a 40% purse split while he, Hopkins, would take the larger 60% cut.

Hopkins figured that he’s fighting at a higher level than Jones right now and therefore should take more money. Jones, however, wasn’t interested in that option and offered back a winner take all, which Hopkins didn’t like. However, their conversation was record on the Calvin Murphy show and the transcripts from the Jones-Hopkins conversation was posted on a number of prominent boxing websites.

The interest in the potential Hopkins-Jones fight took a lot of people by surprise, perhaps even Hopkins himself, as before that Hopkins was talking about fighting Tomasz Adamek and Chad Dawson. However, the boxing public seems to be much more interested in seeing Hopkins fight Jones rather than Adamek or Dawson, even though Jones is clearly on the downside of his career and those guys are still at the very top of their careers.

As for Hopkins vs. Jones, if either of the fighters are knocked out, they’ll automatically receive 40% of the purse rather than 50%, something that will likely motivate both Jones and Hopkins to push hard for a stoppage. Neither of them are knockout punchers by any stretch of the imagination, although Jones tended to get a lot of knockout wins earlier in his career due to his fast hand speed. In the past five years, Jones has been knocked out twice, so perhaps could take advantage of Jones’ fragile chin if this fight comes off.

Jones and Hopkins fought back in 1993 with a young Jones winning by a 12-round unanimous decision by the judges’ scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Hopkins had problems with Jones’ speed and was never able to cope with it.

It’s unclear why Hopkins changed his mind about wanting to fight Jones for less than 60%. It could be that Hopkins did the math and realized that he’d make more money fighting Jones at 50% than he would in taking a bigger 65% cut against someone like Dawson or Adamek.

Both of them are great fighters, but the interest from the boxing public in seeing Hopkins fight either of them has been low compared to a rematch with Jones. Obviously, it’s Jones’ name value that is driving the interest. Adamek and Dawson, although great fighters, still have yet to build up a huge fan base outside of the East coast of the United States.

One problem for a potential Hopkins-Jones rematch is whether a cable outlet like HBO would be interested in showing it. In the recent past, they’ve not taken an interest in showing Jones’ fights against Omar Sheika and Jeff Lacy, so there would be that question that would have to be solved.

However, I think a Jones vs. Hopkins rematch would do very well on Pay-per-view, possibly something that could come in with a respectable 500,000 or better buys. Hopkins and Jones are living legends, two of the best fighters in boxing history. I think this is a fight that the boxing public would really go for right now.

Jones says that he’s already received a contract from Golden Boy Promotions. “[Golden Boy] sent a bad contract, but of course, my lawyer John Wirt is on top of that,” Jones said. “We won’t be signing that one, but we’ll figure it out.”

Although Jones has faced lesser opposition than Hopkins in recent years, other than Roy’s loss to Joe Calzaghe last year, Jones might still have Hopkins’ number. Jones still has very fast hand speed as he showed in his 10th round stoppage of Jeff Lacy last month. Hopkins doesn’t do well against fighter like Jones who have great hand speed.

This isn’t a fighter like Kelly Pavlik that Hopkins would be able to dominate by circling Jones and using his super hand speed, because Jones still has the advantage in that area. If Hopkins tries that strategy against Jones, he’ll get hammered by Roy’s quick combinations and made to look bad. Additionally, Hopkins won’t be able pot shot like he did against Calzaghe because Jones is quicker and a better mover than Calzaghe.



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