Roy Jones Jr. planning next fight; Escalante to face Ponce de Leon

Years ago, Roy Jones Jr. said he wouldn't end up one of the sad boxing cases, a fighter who fights on well past his due date, when it's clear he has nothing left to give in the ring. But today, that's exactly what he's doing.

Dan Rafael's weekly Notebook is up at ESPN.com, and one of the stories is that Jones, who turns 42 in January, is going to fight again. At the moment, according to Jones' Square Ring partner John Wirt, they're looking at a potential fight with Danny Santiago (31-4-1, 19 KO), a 37-year-old journeyman without a notable fight on his record since 2007. The fight would take place at cruiserweight. In fact, he's fought just twice since then. You might recall Santiago as the man who got mixed up in the Antonio Tarver-Danny Green debacle late in 2007, when Tarver had agreed to fight Green, and Showtime was even promoting the fight with ads on TV, only for it to turn out that Tarver hadn't signed the contract and had no plans to fight Green.

Santiago was Green's replacement. At about 5'8", he's really short for a light heavyweight, and all four of his losses have been by stoppage. He's got almost nothing by way of good wins on his record as a professional, and this would be another obvious case of Jones doing what he's been doing since his famous three-fight losing streak in 2004-05. He fights a couple of easy marks, wins, declares himself "back," and loses badly to someone good.

After losing those three fights, he put up wins over Prince Badi Ajamu, Anthony Hanshaw and a fat, faded Tito Trinidad. Then he got routed and busted up by Joe Calzaghe. Then he beat shot Omar Sheika and shot Jeff Lacy, and meant to get a win over Danny Green, but instead was stopped in one. He still fought Bernard Hopkins in arguably the worst, most overblown, most undesired rematch in boxing history, and lost a dirty, miserable fight where neither guy looked like he had anything left.

Now, Santiago -- maybe. Wirt says there are other options. But there shouldn't be. Jones is done in the ring and someone who cares about him needs to convince him to get out before something bad happens.

Other bits from Rafael's Notebook in brief, and as always it's a must-read, so click the link:

• Antonio Escalante will be replacing Mickey Roman on the Mosley-Mora undercard against Daniel Ponce de Leon. Golden Boy decided to make the change because Roman hadn't signed his contract yet. Escalante and Roman, of course, had a Fight of the Year contender on ESPN2 earlier this year. Escalante-Ponce is a potentially exciting fight, but people say that about lots of Ponce fights that usually wind up being uneventful. Still, it's a much better fight than Ponce-Roman was.
• Mike Jones and Guillermo Rigondeaux will be on the Pacquiao-Margarito undercard. Hopefully Jones faces a live body instead of some shot veteran or overmatched nobody.
• Humberto Soto's upcoming mismatch has been moved up to Sept. 11 on the Gamboa-Salido card. HBO will not televise the Soto fight, but it will be on the international broadcast.