Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins weighed in on Friday for their “long awaited” showdown on Saturday night which is to take place at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I was expecting an eventful show but the whole thing seemed to be just going through the motions.
Jones came in first and was half a pound over the 175lbs limit, while Hopkins followed and weighed in bang on 175.
Words were exchanged by Hopkins and Jones as they stared one another down, but Bernard seemed strangely disinterested as he just took Roy’s words with a pinch of salt and refused to get into a war of words with him.
World famous Master of Ceremonies, Michael Buffer, handed the microphone to Roy who, being his usual self, thanked his fans from Pensacola for coming out to support him. Bernard, still looking like he wanted something better to do, took the microphone but quickly gave it back to Buffer, did his usual executioner sign, and walked off!
An hour later, after shedding some weight, Jones came back and weighed in again, this time coming in at 175, right on the limit.
So, no theatrics, no drama….probably like how the fight will pan out on Saturday night, too!
I’ve been racking my brain, trying to find an answer as to why this fight has been made and I still can’t answer that question. It doesn’t make sense financially because this fight still hasn’t sold out, and that’s now on the day of the fight! Just check on Ticketmaster and you can easily request a ticket!
Pay Per View sales in the US? Forget it! 
It’s a prime example of the greed that has now overtaken boxing. Charging the hard working public to watch two grand-daddy’s in the ring, and the public knows it with the reflection in poor ticket sales.
I remember the days when we bought a Pay Per View for big mega events that involved two fighters in their primes, and matches that were of optimum quality. It seems that promoters have just gotten too greedy as the years have gone by, and they are taking liberties with the fight fans by cheekily asking for $50 for any old crap!
About 10 years ago, you would have probably found this fight on America’s Boxing After Dark or, worst case scenario, ESPN Friday Night Fights and on SKY for free! No actually, scratch that, SKY wouldn’t have even showed it, given their poor reputation in lacking to show the big fights.
So tonight we have a fight between two modern day greats, but it’s a fight that produces so little excitement. Something is definately wrong. It is not just the fact that Roy is shot and Bernard is mundane to watch, their original 1993 showdown was a borefest and a fight that Jones clearly won.
So where is the rivalry coming from?
It’s the PR machine at work here, folks! If you live in the USA, do yourself and the sport of boxing a favour, don’t purchase the PPV. Go out for the night and enjoy yourself, I can 100% guarantee you will have a better time doing anything else. If you can watch the fight for free, somehow, then by all means, watch the two grand-daddy’s at work.
But boxing doesn’t need this fight, especially when we have other mouth watering showdowns on the horizon such as Mayweather vs Mosley, a potential Pacquiao vs Mayweather bout, the Super 6 tournament that pits the best of the Super Middleweights against one another, Pavlik vs Martinez and that is just to name a few.
It’s these mentioned fights above that make boxing what it is, not subpar quality matches such as Hopkins vs Jones that try to con the public.
Let’s just get this fight over with so boxing can move on and we can put this sorry excuse for a fight out of our minds as soon as possible!
