By Jim Slattengren: You got to like Bernard Hopkins. He really knows how to come up with some good sound bites to sell a fight, even one that a lot of boxing cans could really care less about at this point. The 45-year-old Hopkins will be facing 41-year-old Roy Jones Jr. (54-6, 40 KO’s) on April 3rd at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hopkins is trying his best to hype the Jones fight and make it seem that the bout has relevance to boxing fans.

The problem here is that it’s hard for some of the younger fans to identify with Hopkins and Jones because they’re getting up there in age and neither of them has been in any huge bouts in the past couple of years or more. And to make matters worse, Jones is coming off of 1st round knockout loss in December against Danny Green. That loss obviously took a lot of the air out of the Jones-Hopkins fight. Hopkins wants fans to believe that it’s personal for him, because he was defeated by Jones 17-years ago in 1993.

About Jones, Hopkins says “This means a lot to me. This means that Roy Jones Jr. is going to have to fight me off him. When you have that mindset, you are going to have to take risks too. Roy Jones Jr. is going to have to fight to not get knocked out or fight to knock me out. That has been the motivation for 17 years.” Hopefully Hopkins looks better than he did in his last performance on December 2nd against middleweight contender Enrique Ornelas.

In that fight, Hopkins fought a lot like he did in his losing effort against Joe Calzaghe. Hopkins did a lot of punching and immediately grabbing and not throwing a whole of punches. It was the kind of style that older fighters use to conserve strength. If Hopkins fights like that against Jones, I can see Roy beating him again like he did 17 years ago.

Jones still has his hand speed going for him and is still effective unless he’s facing someone a big puncher or someone like Calzaghe that throws nonstop punches for 12 rounds. Hopkins is neither a huge puncher nor someone that throws a lot of punches. This is why you have to give Jones a good chance of beating Hopkins regardless of what happened to Jones in his last fight.

Jones says “The fans wanted it, and since they couldn’t give them the other fight they wanted we’re going to give them something else. What I have planned is simple. I will fight to get you off me, or I will fight to knock you out, whichever one comes first. Whichever comes first, that’s what I’ll be doing. I’ll knock you out to get you off me, or go after you and knock you out. It doesn’t matter.”

Boxing have been waiting for Jones and Hopkins to get back in the ring for ages, but after waiting for over a decade without any luck, a lot of fans stopped carrying about seeing this fight. It’s disappointing that Hopkins and Jones had to wait so long and finally fight in their 40s when a lot of their skills have eroded. I think fans care to see this fight, but not as many as Jones might think. However, it is the best fight for both of them at this stage.

Hopkins is capable of a lot more, but he doesn’t appear to be interested in challenging himself and taking on someone like Chad Dawson, Tavoris Cloud, Jean Pascal, Adrian Diaconu or Glen Johnson.

“The day ‘The Executioner’ [Hopkins] will leave the boxing ring is going to be April 3rd,” Jones says. “The man’s so jealous of me that he doesn’t even want to see my kids watch the fight. He doesn’t want to see any resemblance of me near a boxing ring because it reminds him of that 17-year nightmare he’s had to face.” Neither of these guys will be retiring win or lose on April 3rd. They can still make a good living fighting this guy or that guy.

I think Jones could retire if Hopkins knocks him out in a vicious fashion, but I don’t see that happening the way Hopkins is fighting. He’s too methodical and not very fast.