By Eric Thomas: Light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KO’s) isn’t ready to hang up the gloves on his 22-year pro career just yet. After struggling to beat Roy Jones Jr. in an ugly foul-plagued bout last Saturday, Hopkins says in an article at Boxing Talk If they think I have no chance with David Haye because he beat John Ruiz, who lost to Roy Jones Jr. They’re acting like Ruiz is a Klitschko or something. If it ain’t meaningful, I won’t do it. I’m not retired. I don’t have no reason to retire and I still have fight in me.”

Hopkins was hurt by a couple of rabbit punches from Jones in their fight last Saturday. One of the punches, the one landed in the 6th, caused Hopkins to stay on the canvas for a long time, holding his head in pain. After the fight, Hopkins was taken to a hospital to have a CAT scan done on his brain after falling down in the dressing room after the fight. Hopkins complained of seeing spots. He was later taken to the Las Vegas Medical Center after the fight for an examination.

According to a press release, the results from the CAT scan were negative. Hopkins, talking about the fight with Jones, says “It wasn’t the prettiest performance of my career and Roy’s style of not really wanting to fight didn’t make it easy for me to perform at the level of my ability, which I feel is still there…you can still expect great things from me in the future.” It’s hard to say how Jones’ style was affecting Hopkins in the fight, however, because Jones wasn’t really throwing many punches to speak of.

Most of the fight, Jones stood holding his left arm way out in front of him and not throwing. Hopkins was the one doing all the moving and all the punching. Jones just stood there mostly. It’s hard to imagine how Hopkins can see Jones as having done anything to make the fight difficult for him, aside for the two rabbit punches he nailed Hopkins with. Jones looked like the same identical fighter that was blasted out by Danny Green in December. In that fight, Jones just stood in front of Green without throwing punches and got taken apart in one round by the Australian.

Hopkins seemed to foil his own attacks by rushing up to Jones, throwing a couple of punches, missing much of the time and then immediately grabbing Jones in a clinch.

Hopkins and Golden Boy Promotions are reportedly interested in setting up a fight with WBA heavyweight champion David Haye. If the fight could be made, it would take place in the United States, so that Haye could start building up his fan base. It’s a doable fight but it will take some persuading to make Haye and his manager Adam Booth to agree on it. Other than fighting a rematch with Nikolay Valuev, which Haye has to do sooner or later, Hopkins might be the next best thing to fighting the Klitschko brothers. It would be good opportunity for Haye to get better known in the U.S. before facing the Klitschko brothers at some point in 2011.