By Chris Williams: Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. will be fighting this Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both Hopkins and Jones are over 40-years-old, and have seen better days. We have a case of two counter punchers that don’t like to throw a lot of punches going up against each other. And in the case of the 41-year-old Jones, his punch resistance appears to be almost completely gone. Jones was stopped in the 1st round in December.

If there was ever a case of a pointless fight, this would be it. Hopkins says he wants revenge for his defeat at the hands of Jones 17 long years ago. Many of the boxing public stopped caring about seeing a match between these two fighters long ago. If they wanted to make a fight happen between them, they waited far too long for it to be interesting.

At this point, whoever wins this fight it won’t matter all that much because neither fighter will be seen as any kind of top dog in the light heavyweight division. Hopkins, 45, wants no part of Chad Dawson, the fighter who many people consider to be the number #1 light heavyweight in the division. Hopkins says he doesn’t want to take away from the future by fighting and beating Dawson.

I don’t know too many boxing fans who buy that excuse. This fight has the potential to be either a knockout victory for Hopkins or an incredibly boring fight. I’m thinking it will be more of the latter. Hopkins can punch a little when he wants to, but he’s more of a punch and grab type now that he’s reached his mid 40s. To take out Jones, a fighter has to have good power and has to at least be able to throw some combinations.

Hopkins probably won’t be throwing too many combos on Saturday night. The real shocking thing about the Jones-Hopkins fight is the price tag of $50. That’s a lot of money to watch only one decent fight. The undercard is pretty poor if you ask me. We have Jason Litzau vs. Rocky Juarez, Sergio Mora vs. Calvin Green, Daniel Judah vs. Ukrainian prospect Ismayl Silakh. I think Silakh, Mora and Juarez are good fighters, but I don’t like who they’ve been pitted against.

That’s not interesting and I don’t think it’s enough to justify me paying fifty bucks, because I don’t see the Jones vs. Hopkins fight to be worth that kind of money. Jones hasn’t looked good recently since as far back as 2004, and it’s troubling that’s he’s been stopped several times in the past six years. Jones mostly doesn’t fight anyone good anymore, but when he does bad things happen for him. He was beaten by Joe Calzaghe, Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson and most recently Danny Green.

You can expect to add Hopkins’ name to that list after Saturday. That doesn’t mean that Hopkins could beat Jones in his prime. We’ve already seen that Hopkins couldn’t. It just means that Hopkins can beat Jones now that he’s 40 and slowed down. It kind isn’t interesting because of the age of the two fighters. It’s kind of off putting.

If they choose to fight in their 50s, I have no idea who would win, and I don’t see it as having any relevance other than a statistical thing. If both fighters were still taking on the very best in the light heavyweight division instead of cherry picking opponents, then maybe it would be more interesting to watch them fight each other. However, I think if Hopkins was fighting guys like Dawson and Tavoris Cloud, he’d be losing. The same goes for Jones.