A great debate was held last Tuesday at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square between two of boxing's elder statesmen, sure fire hall of famers Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. to herald their upcoming April 23rd showdown at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The two last faced each other 17 years ago at RFK stadium on the undercard of a Riddick Bowe fight to fill the IBF middleweight championship vacancy with Jones taking an uneventful majority decision win. Since then both men's careers flourished in different ways, Jones shined using his athleticism to do things that no other boxer at the time could do in the ring capturing titles from middleweight up to heavyweight while Hopkins went on a 12 year winning streak in which he set the all time record for middleweight championship defenses beating superstars like Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya, Winky Wright, Antonio Tarver, and Kelly Pavlik along the way. Through out the past 17b years attempts to these two back in the ring for a rematch proved futile and both men blamed each other for the collapse of the rematch negotiations.
The recent activities of both men suggest that they are now sailing in two different directions as Hopkins has maintained his excellence by meeting and defeating the top fighters between the light heavyweight and middleweight divisions, while Jones is attempting to come back from a devastating first round knockout loss to Danny Green in Australia in a fight that was supposed to be a tune up for his fight with Hopkins. Compared to Hopkins' performance in his last two fights (unanimous decisions over Enrique Ornelas and middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik) Jones has the look of a shot fighter. Many fans and boxing media see this match up as being made way too late now but if there is one thing that this fight has going for it is that the rivalry is for real.
The differences between both men were on full exhibit at the debate as they each approached their upcoming fight differently. Hopkins was intense in expressing both his view that he had improved since their first match and his personal dislike for Roy Jones, he viewed their rematch as a personal issue while Jones likened meeting Hopkins again to putting on a pair of old pants, that he would win as easily as he would slip into a pair of comfortable pants. "This fight is very important to me because its personal," said Hopkins, "a lot of fighters don't have history, we've got 17 plus year history." From the onset of this promised to be a debate like no other as Hopkins opened up by saying, "Thanks for being here, I'm going to kick Roy Jones' [expletive]." It was hard to mistake Hopkins' intensity as a play to sell the fight as his entire career has seemed to be as intense as his attempts through out the years to get this rematch.
For his part Roy Jones reacted indifferently to questions about this fight being personal to him as he cited that he already owned a victory over Hopkins and that his accomplishments are better than his rival's to whom he constantly referred to as 'Big Head'. Although Jones tried to play it cool during the debate and when fielding questions by the gathered media, when asked by this reporter how badly Jones wanted to hold two victories over Hopkins at the end of their careers, Jones responded with a twinkle in his eye by saying, "Oh that's what its all about."
With the stipulation worked into the contract that if the winner wins by knockout he would get 60 percent of the purse the stakes are raised higher for both men to knock each other out. It's that type of motivation that should make things very interesting when these two collide in April.
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