By Jason Kim: Boxing great Roy Jones Jr. (54-7, 40 KO’s) will be making his ring return next month against Danny Santiago (31-4-1, 19 KO’s) on October 7th at the Civic Center, Pensacola, Florida. Jones, 41, has lost his last two fights against Danny Green and Bernard Hopkins, but still refuses to hang up the gloves just yet. The fight against the 37-year-old Santiago should be able to give Jones’s fans a good chance to see him reverse his two loss losing streak and get back on the winning track.
However, in terms of any real meaning, there’s not much Jones will be able to get from this win other than another meaningless ‘W’ on his record. It’s pretty much established now that Jones doesn’t have enough left in the tank to beat the best fighters in his division and he’s left to take on 2nd tier opponents like Santiago and Omar Sheika to keep winning.
Jones didn’t look good in his recent fight against Hopkins in April. It was a fight where Jones might have been able to make it close if he had at least pulled the trigger on his punches every now and then. Hopkins was there to be beaten in that fight, but Jones’ work rate was practically nonexistent for some reason. Hopkins had a big part in that because he was able to crowd Jones and make him fight in close.
However, even when Hopkins was on the outside, Jones just refused to let his hands go with any regularity. If Jones fights the same way against Santiago, there’s a good chance that Jones will lose that fight as well. More than likely he’ll win this fight, but you can’t really tell for sure because Jones has looked so bad in his last two bouts.
Jones looked good in beating Jeff Lacy by a 10th round stoppage last year in August. However, that Jones was missing in action against Hopkins last April and Jones is going to have to make sure he fixes whatever was holding him back in the Hopkins fight if he wants to win the bout against Santiago.
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