By William Mackay: 17 years after the two of them last faced each other, Roy Jones Jr. (54-6, 40 KO’s) and Bernard Hopkins (50-5-1, 32 KO’s) will finally meet up again for a light heavyweight bout on April 17th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. It appears that the two fighters have waited 17 years too long for this fight to occur, because now that both Hopkins and Jones are in their 40s, this fight is more like an old timer’s fight than a bout with any kind of relevance whatsoever.

Jones, 41, has been stopped three times in the past six years, and there are many boxing fans who feel that Jones’s ability to take punishment has degraded in recent years. It could be that Jones, who was rarely ever hit in his prime because of his lightning fast reflexes and hand speed, never did have the greatest chin, but we’re only finding that out now that he’s slowed down and doesn’t move nearly as much as he used to earlier in his career.

In Jones’ last fight against International Boxing Organization cruiserweight champion Danny Green on December 2nd, Jones was dropped with a big right hand early in the 1st round. Jones then covered up and took a barrage of punches from Green that last 20 seconds until the bout was finally halted by the referee Howard John Foster when it became clear that Jones wasn’t in the position to throw anything back at Green.

That fight took pretty much all the air out of the Hopkins-Jones fight. Jones was supposed to fight Green as a tune-up for the Hopkins bout, but after Jones was beaten by Green, it made a bout between Jones and Hopkins kind of meaningless. Green attempted to line up a fight with Hopkins, but he was unable to put together a fight because Hopkins wanted a bigger pay cut than him.

The fight that many boxing fans want to see if Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson, and it’s hard not to see why because these two fighters are the best in the division. Hopkins, however, has been reluctant to taking this fight for some reason. It’s hard to see why not, because Dawson is considered by many to be the best fighter in the light heavyweight division, better even than Hopkins.

By facing Dawson, Hopkins would be proving himself against another younger fighter and would really be able to help cement his legacy if he were able to beat the younger Dawson. Hopkins defeated middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik by a 12 round decision in late 2008. It was a great win, but the fight was held at a catch weight and Pavlik didn’t look good fighting out of the middleweight division. But at least if Hopkins faced Dawson, he would be facing someone from his own weight class.

Strangely enough, Jones still remains ranked high in the light heavyweight division, even after the loss to Green. Jones is currently ranked number #1 WBO, #3 WBC, #3 IBF and #4 WBA. Those rankings seem almost insane given how bad Jones looked in the Green fight, and with the mostly limited opposition that Jones has been getting his wins against in the past four years.