By Dan Ambrose: On October 7th, boxing great Roy Jones Jr. (54-7, 40 KO’s) will resume his sinking career against little known fighter Danny Santiago (31-4-1, 19 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Civic Center, in Pensacola, Florida. Santiago should be weak enough for the 41-year-old Jones to end his two-fight losing streak and finally get a win. However, you can’t really be too sure, because Jones has looked totally shot in his 1st round knockout loss to Danny Green in December 2009 and his near shut-out defeat at the hands of 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins in April.

It’s gotten to the point where Jones just stands there frozen like a statue when he fights and is unable to pull the trigger on his shots. Periodically, Jones will throw a rare shot, but he’s not active enough in the ring in terms of letting his hands go and is getting pummeled. This was the case in his losses to Hopkins, Joe Calzaghe and Green. These are all fighters that Jones would have beaten in his prime.

In the case of Hopkins, Jones already beat him in 1993 while fighting with only one good hand. But Jones has really deteriorated in the past six years and he doesn’t have much left. Depending on how bad Santiago looks, I can see Jones getting stopped again if Santiago jumps on Jones early unloads with a flurry of punches. Jones isn’t quick enough to get out of the way of the shots like he used to, and he has a bad habit of just covering up when he’s being unloaded on.

If Santiago can throw a flurry that lasts 30 seconds or so, Jones may end up getting stopped just from not having thrown any punches back. That’s how bad he’s gotten. He’s not pulling the trigger with his shots anymore and his punch rate has dropped to incredibly low numbers. While Jones’ losses have come against top level fighters in the past six years, if he were to get beaten by a 2nd tier fighter like the 37-year-old Santiago, my guess is Jones would finally get a clue that he’s got nothing left and will retire. I hope that’s the case because there’s no point in Jones hanging on and continuing to fight looking as bad as he’s been fighting in the past five to six years.