By Jim Dower: As was reported in the Tampa Tribune, Jeff Lacy (25-2, 17 KOs) and Roy Jones Jr. are reportedly close to completing negations for a bout in the near future. Lacy, 32, says that they’re only a few days away from ironing out the negations and that they’re “90%” done with it.

I suppose that’s good news for Lacy and Jones, because it sets up in theory a fight between two former champions that are quickly finding that they’re not all that relevant in the current boxing stage.

Although both Jones and Lacy are both still contenders in the super middleweight (Lacy) and the light heavyweight division (Jones), neither of them are considered championship quality fighters anymore. Perhaps if they were able to land a lucky punch, I could see one of them snatching a title from one of the champions, but I would consider it highly unlikely of happening given their recent outings.

It’s hard to see what the main goal is for each of them is in this fight other than to make some money, because it’s not clear what weight class this fight will be taking place at. A bigger question is what Jones and Lacy are trying to accomplish with the remainder of their career.

They might be able to get a title shot every now and then based on their bigger name value compared to the mostly unknown fighters in the light heavyweight and super middleweight division, but they’d be badly over-matched against one of them champions in either division.

Jones appears to have a little more left in the tank compared to Lacy, but that’s still just a guess, because Jones hasn’t done well against the only two fighters that I would consider quality in the past four years, losing to Antonio Tarver four years ago and then being defeated by Joe Calzaghe last year in November 2008.

Lacy, a one-time International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion between 2004 and 2006, has looked very unimpressive since being soundly beaten by WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe in a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision loss in March 2006.

That fight seems to have marked the end of Lacy’s string of impressive fights, as before that Lacy was 21-0, with 17 knockouts on his record. Since that fight, Lacy has struggled to win four fights over lesser competition and has lost one of them, a 12-round unanimous decision defeat at the hands of Jermain Taylor last year in November 2008 in a WBC super middleweight title eliminator.

For his part, Roy Jones Jr., now 40, hasn’t been the same fighter he was earlier in his career since being knocked out in the 2nd round by Tarver in 2004. This started an avalanche of poor performances for Jones, ending with his loss to Calzaghe last year.

In between that time, Jones would be stopped in the 9th round by Glen Johnson in September 2004, and then lose another time to Tarver in October 2005. Following that loss, Jones began playing it safe, fighting lesser known opponents like Prince Badi Ajamu, Anthony Hanshaw and then a washed up Felix Trinidad. Against the lesser competition, Jones was able to get back on the winning trail, but at the price of many boxing experts considering Jones washed up.

If the Jones-Lacy fight can be set up, this should be a winnable fight for Jones. He’s bigger, faster, more experienced and has the much better boxing ability than Lacy. All Lacy has going for him is his right hand. His left hook hasn’t been the same since Lacy suffered an injury to his left shoulder in his 10-round win over Ukrainian Vitali Tsypko in December 2006.