By Matt Stein: Former four division world champion Roy Jones Jr. (54-7, 40 KO’s) plans on returning to the ring next month against little known Danny Santiago (31-4-1, 19 KO’s) in a fight in Pensacola, Florida. Jones, once considered the best fighter in the world for almost 10 years, has now lost three out of his last four bouts and it’s hard to see what Jones is still fighting for at this point in his career. In his last fight, Jones was beaten by 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins by a lopsided 12 round decision in April.

It was a winnable fight for Jones if he had just let his punches go, but he fought most of the fight like a statue and was unable to throw punches even when Hopkins was open. In his fight before that, Jones was stopped in the 1st round by IBO cruiserweight champion Danny Green in December 2009. That fight should have been a signal to Jones that he needed to hang up the gloves. However, he continues despite his lack of luck in his fights now.

Santiago, 37, is a huge drop off for the kinds of opponents that Jones has been fighting recently, unless you count his fight with Omar Sheika last year. Santiago has previously been stopped by both Zsolt Erdei and Antonio Tarver three years ago in 2007. Santiago has done little in the ring since then, beating Paul Jennette and Billy Bailey in his last two fights. If Jones’ intention is to just look for an easy win and then retire, then this is the guy he needs to be fighting.

But if Jones is planning on continuing his career against B level fighters instead of A fighters, then he probably is wasting his time. This isn’t a fighter that is going to help Jones’ legacy and he’s just risking more by staying on and fighting unnecessary fights that boxing fans don’t really care about. Jones still has blazing fast hands, but he just doesn’t throw enough punches to beat the better fighters. In his losses to Joe Calzaghe and Hopkins, Jones just couldn’t pull the trigger on his punches for some reason. He looks shot to hell.

But he’s still probably good enough to beat some of the top 15 fighters in the light heavyweight division, although he would be taking a big risk to fight those guys because he would be risking another another knockout loss. Jones should get by Santiago without too many problems as long as he takes advantages of the openings that Santiago presents.