From Michael Rosenthal at The Ring:

[Richard] Schaefer said the pay-per-view tally for the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones Jr. fight on April 3 is at about 130,000 but is expected to approach 150,000 after all the figures are in.

Golden Boy set 300,000 as its goal. However, some experts wondered whether it would exceed 100,000, which Schaefer said was overly pessimistic.

"They ARE two big names," he said.

They WERE two big names, but OK, and that's some nice spin at the end of this.

• Report very low figure
• Explain that very low figure is half (150,000) what the goal was (300,000)
• Point out that people who said it might not go over 100,000 were "overly pessimistic," which I suppose has been proven to be relatively true
  
• End there
• Without pointing out that the "overly pessimistic" number is three times closer to the reality than the Golden Boy goal

This 150,000-buy show did worse than the massive flops of Calzaghe-Jones (220K) and Pavlik-Hopkins (180K) the last time either were on a major and properly-promoted PPV. Maybe you can adjust that and explain it away with the fact that HBO didn't promote this show, and did promote those two, but it probably should've told them all something when HBO bailed on promoting this stinkbomb to begin with. Nobody wanted to see this fight.

Perhaps I am "hating." Maybe I should let it go. But now we've got Hopkins going insane in the media again, claiming bias and this and that and everyone's against him, but the fact of the matter is he cannot sell a fight anymore, and never really could. Why would anyone want to promote an extremely stubborn negotiator who can't back it up at the bank? And to make it all worse, THIS fight sure as hell didn't help his image in any way.

As you probably have already heard, Saturday's PPV fight between Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins was not a live success in Las Vegas. Almost anybody could have predicted that would be the case. Dan Rafael of ESPN.com said that the attendance was reported as 6,792, and that that wasn't paid in full:

The media coverage and fan reaction were overwhelmingly negative, and only 6,792 people showed up at Mandalay Bay to watch the fight, despite the availability of deeply discounted or even free tickets.

Yahoo! Sports columnist Kevin Iole also broke down the financial situation for the fighters:

The sad thing about the fight is that Jones won’t make anything. Let’s assume for a second that the 6,792 in the building actually paid for their seats (we know that’s not true) and that the seats averaged $300 a ticket (a figure higher than reality). That would mean the gate was $2 million. If the expenses to rent the building and promote the fight were $1 million, that means $1 million is left. Now, let’s figure it sold 100,000 pay-per-views at $49.95 apiece. That’s about $5 million. They have to split 50 percent of that with the cable and satellite operators, so that leaves $2.498 million for themselves. Add the $1 million from the gate and the $2.498 million from the pay-per-view and you have $3.498 million in profit. Given that the contract called for the first $3.5 million in profit to go to Hopkins and Golden Boy, it’s almost certain Jones fought for nothing. Actual revenue will likely be far less than I’ve described above.

Part of me finds this incredibly sad. I'm a Roy Jones fan. I admit the man has absolutely nothing left in the tank whatsoever. I was able to pump myself up one final time, figuring that against his rival, anything in reserves might come out of him for this one night. It didn't happen. He was awful. He wasn't even the faded Roy Jones of recent years.

Now, he's not even going to make any money, and if he does, it will be peanuts. There are a few ways to look at this. First, you have to give credit, whether it seems "fair" or not, to Bernard Hopkins and Golden Boy Promotions. The first $3.5 million going to Hopkins and Golden Boy, when $3.5 million was no guarantee for this fight at all, is a shrewd business move. Jones and his people clearly lost the battle at the negotiating table on that one, perhaps because they were delusional enough to grossly overestimate public demand for this fight.

Let's say Jones had beaten Danny Green in December and this fight had happened with both coming off of wins. Would it have been that much different? Neither man has sold a fight in a long time. Their last major PPV appearances in 2008, promoted by HBO, were flops (Hopkins-Pavlik and Jones-Calzaghe). Hopkins, frankly, has never been a major star. Jones was a bigger star, but was never a crossover, big-selling guy like Oscar de la Hoya or the last few years of Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s career.

The talk was already there that it was way too late for anyone to really care about a Jones-Hopkins rematch. I think they'd have done a bit better. For one thing, HBO would have promoted the fight, at least a little, and that would have helped. For another thing, Jones wouldn't have been just stopped in a round by a guy from Australia who has no name value in the States. Even among the American diehards, those who know much about Danny Green don't turn up in significant numbers.

There's a chance they did better than 100,000 on pay-per-view, but I don't think it's much of a chance at this point. My very high-end estimate was 250,000 buys, and I conceded that it could easily have been half of that. So let's even say they did 125K or 150K. Jones still makes almost nothing for the fight. Bottom line is if this was Roy's way of making it to the bank with a smile one final time, it's not happening.

Cold, hard facts are what both men need to face: it's over. I don't think there's a single fight Hopkins can make right now where the risk outweighs the "reward." The two fights people talk about are Chad Dawson and David Haye. Does anyone who watched Hopkins on Saturday think he can beat either of them? He's too small for Haye, whose power is entirely legit at the heavyweight level, and who is a faster, bigger, stronger athlete, and oh yeah, he's almost 20 years younger. Dawson dominated Glen Johnson his last time out, and Johnson is far more aggressive and gung ho than Hopkins has looked in his last two fights. "Bad" Chad looks like he's coming into his own, and I don't see him having the flaws that a wily veteran like Hopkins can exploit, at least not now. Maybe if we were talking the Hopkins of two-to-four years ago against today's Dawson, sure, but we're not.

For Jones' sake, I do hope this did shockingly solid numbers on PPV and he gets some money. The fight was terrible and there's that complete cynic in me that says, "I wish neither of them got paid," but I also recognize that that's a pointless way to think about things. He went and did his job. But if he doesn't get paid, it's hard to cry the blues. Boxers are, like it or not, subject to the whims of the public demand as to how they're paid. If it turns out the public spoke so loudly that Jones doesn't make a dollar for the fight, that's just kind of the way it is.

After all, this isn't a situation like David Lopez (for instance), where the man is avoided and can't make the money he probably deserves, or the countless other fighters in a similar situation. Everyone knew who these two were. Nobody who really follows boxing doesn't know Jones and Hopkins. These aren't the mishandled, unfortunate cases, where deserving men aren't paid what they've put in. It's just that it looks like few were willing to pay $50 to see them fight again, and everyone was trying to tell them that for months. In this case, Roy has taken a major risk, and it appears he's lost.

Since I didn't go too much into the PPV undercard last night in the Hopkins-Jones recap, let's do that now.

Jason Litzau TD-7 Rocky Juarez

This wasn't the exciting fight it could have been. It went the fight's other potential way: Juarez and Litzau were both tentative, and neither of them ever really opened up. Litzau was booed pretty heavily by the audience after the fight, which I thought was rather unfair to him. I had him leading 67-66 on my card when the fight was stopped, and I feel he deserves the win. The crowd was probably booing so much because they thought Litzau wasn't a warrior or didn't have a Spartan heart!!! or whatever, but the doctor stopped the fight, not Litzau. His eye was nearly swollen shut and he probably couldn't see much. Litzau may not be the all-action guy he has a reputation as being (that has really slowed down after his two bad losses), but he's not a wimp, either. I felt bad for him having to soak in boos he really hadn't earned.

Meanwhile, Juarez was cheered, which I found just as puzzling, but also assume has something to do with the crowd assuming Juarez was gaining momentum (he might have been), and that Juarez deserved to have the fight finish. But if the boos were at all because the fight itself was pretty dull, I blame Juarez before I do Litzau. Why would Litzau storm at a guy who's a better inside fighter than he is, who can punch, when Juarez wasn't going to make him do that?

As always, Rocky Juarez came into the fight saying, "I know I start slow, I need to start quicker." But he didn't do that. After the fight, he said he was planning to turn it up in the last few rounds. He had the eighth, ninth and tenth rounds to turn up the heat, and sure he could have knocked out Litzau, but why not attack earlier? Litzau has in the past shown a willingness to completely abandon a smarter boxing style to trade bombs, and it's gotten him beaten down. This win for Litzau is by far the biggest one he has on his sheet now. I don't want to say Rocky Juarez "let him" win, because that's too far, but Rocky Juarez genuinely didn't do much to stop Litzau from winning this fight.

Juarez is now 28-6-1 (20 KO). He is 0-4-1 in title fights (0-5-1 if you count the interim title fight he had with Humberto Soto). He's now lost to Litzau, who is a big step down from Barrera, John and Soto. Where does he go? What does he really offer anyone? I know it was heat of the moment and post-fight interviews aren't always much to care about, but Juarez seemed unsure whether or not he wanted to be in the stepping stone or gatekeeper position that he probably is now. To be honest, if he has the desire to keep going, it wouldn't be the worst thing for him to do. Juarez still has the power and ability to knock off overconfident, potentially overhyped guys on their way up, and then he's back in the mix.

But he's never going to change his style. I'm done being frustrated as a fan of Rocky Juarez. He is what he is, a good guy and a good fighter who most of the time is his own worst enemy in the ring. Given the lack of depth at 130 pounds, Jason Litzau (who I still don't feel is top 10 or too close to it in that division) could very well get a title shot if the Square Ring people try to find one for him.

Sergio Mora TKO-7 Calvin Green

Calvin Green was never going to win this fight, but damned if he didn't try. At 5'8", he was clearly fighting overweight against Mora, who is a legitimate middleweight -- not a big one or a strong one, but a middleweight. And Green was also clearly out of his depth in terms of talent. But the Texas club fighter came to his first-ever televised fight on a mission. He was going to knock Sergio Mora out.

It didn't happen, but hats off to Calvin Green for not just accepting a rollover position for the former junior middleweight titlist and "Contender" winner. Green brought the fight to Mora. Problem was, he just wasn't big enough to hurt him, so eventually Green worse himself out, and Mora took full control of the fight. Sergio seemed in the middle rounds of the fight to get that he could let Green punch himself out for two minutes, then storm on him in the final minute of the round and leave a big impression. It worked, and eventually Green all but fell into the corner and referee Russell Mora stopped the bout, which was a good call. Green was upset because he wanted to finish the fight, but it was a proper stoppage.

Mora probably could use another tune-up fight, and one that comes soon. Even if it's just a fight with a decent journeyman on Fight Night Club, Mora needs to stay more active. I have never been a Sergio Mora fan, but when he's on his game, he's a tricky, awkward guy and a tough out for just about anybody. When he was set to fight Kelly Pavlik last year, I thought Pavlik would win, but that Mora would give him some trouble. Mora's still just 29 and hasn't taken a lot of punishment in his career, so there's still a chance for him to win some titles and make some money. Golden Boy will get behind him if they can, I reckon. That's up to Sergio now. How bad does he want it? I think by signing on to fight Pavlik last year, he showed us that perhaps he's past that stage of his career where he flubbed a Jermain Taylor fight over location and wound up drawing Elvin Ayala instead, which threatened to all but remove him from the relevant boxing scene. But he came back, beat Vernon Forrest, and turned his career around. He's still got a window, but it's smaller than it was before. It's on him to do something now.

Ismayl Sillakh TKO-2 Daniel Judah

Judah is not as durable as he used to be, but Sillakh is the real deal. He fights with precision -- he's a good puncher, likes to target the body, has a useful cockiness about him ("swagger," you might call it), and fights smart, too. He got cut in this fight, not in a good place, so he came out in the second round to rid himself of this fight, and busted Judah out of there at 0:49 of the second frame. He's got the killer instinct.

Now what's left to find out is what he can take, mentally and physically. Judah had nothing in the ring last night, really, and while he was a big step up for Sillakh, there are more steps to take. I'd call Sillakh a blue chip prospect, but there's still a lot to learn about him. Eventually, no matter how good you are, you find yourself in with someone who can take your shots and bring some back to you. Sillakh hasn't met that guy yet, but he will. Sometimes it happens on the major stage, sometimes it happens in a club somewhere. But it'll happen, and then we'll know more.

Frankie Gomez TKO-3 Clayvonne Howard

Despite the insistence of Joe Tessitore and Doug Fischer, Howard was no real test for Gomez. Yeah, he fought kinda hard, but he didn't fight that hard, and obviously the 18-year-old Gomez was way too much for him. Gomez also weighed 140 on the scales, with Howard at 134. That's two different weight classes. It means nothing (Gomez was going to beat him no matter what), but this was just your run of the mill pro debut for a touted prospect.

Gomez is an East Los Angeles product, same as Oscar de la Hoya and Sergio Mora. He drew comparisons in our live thread last night to Juan Diaz, a relentless guy with little fear. We'll see how that translates as he moves up, but he's definitely someone to watch.

Ray Narh TKO-2 Angel Hernandez

Narh was supposedly going to fight Breidis Prescott last year, but didn't. Like Prescott, Narh is a tall (5'10") lightweight with a punch but not a whole lot else. I think he'd probably beat Prescott, though. At 31, he's not a prospect or anything like that. The Ghanaian has been a pro for nine years and it's time to get a move on. He blew past Hernandez, but then he should, and he's been blowing past guys on Hernandez's level for a while now.

Bernard Hopkins got his revenge tonight, beating Roy Jones Jr. by wide unanimous decision in an awful, ugly, and bizarre fight that lived down to the mostly-dreadful expectations of the public, and frankly was probably even worse than anyone really expected.

Official scores were 118-109, 117-110 and 117-110. Bad Left Hook scored it 118-109.

Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KO) and Jones (54-7, 40 KO) never stepped on the gas much, except for one point when Hopkins came back from a rabbit punch with a bit of fire in his belly. After that, they nearly brawled to a double disqualification, but then that spirit never returned.

Hopkins -- who landed a blatant low blow that Tony Weeks didn't see and a rabbit punch that Weeks also missed -- would later complain and roll around on the mat again after another rabbit punch, and went into the whole spiel once again after a low blow.

I don't want to sound like I have no respect for these two fighters. I do. But neither of them looked like they had anything left tonight, the fight was hideous, and the tiny violin-worthy actions of Hopkins were despicable. The fight was truly bad in every single way. Neither fighter landed much by way of significant punches (Jones may not have landed one truly good shot all night), Hopkins flopped three times, Jones later called time on a second Hopkins low blow, and overall the whole thing just felt farcical and embarrassing.

After the fight, Hopkins called out David Haye, which I think more than ever is a terrible idea for him.

They both need to retire, and now. Hopkins is not a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter anymore. He didn't look too great against Enrique Ornelas, and he looked worse tonight. Frankly, I think that's enough said about this fight.

• Jason Litzau (27-2, 21 KO) won a technical decision over Rocky Juarez (28-6-1, 20 KO) after seven full rounds and a big mouse under his eye in the eighth caused by a headbutt got the fight stopped by the ringside physician.
• Sergio Mora beat Calvin Green in the Fight of the Night. Green started well, but just wasn't big or good enough. Mora got the sixth stoppage of his career when the referee stopped the fight in the seventh round.
• Ismayl Sillakh improved to 12-0 (11 KO) by disposing of Daniel Judah in two rounds.
• Off TV, Craig McEwan, Yaundale Evans, Frankie Gomez and Ray Narh all won their fights.

It's here. And we're here. Starting at 9pm EDT, we'll have live, round-by-round coverage, scoring and analysis of the entire PPV card tonight from Las Vegas. After 17 years, Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins meet again.

Related: Jones-Hopkins Preview ... Undercard Preview

BERNARD HOPKINS		ROY JONES JR.
	Main Event

17 years is a long time damn time to wait for a rematch. But that's what has happened with bitter rivals Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins, who first fought as relative youngsters back in 1993, and on Saturday night, will do it again at ages 41 and 45, respectively.

I know it's a $50 PPV. I know the undercard stinks. I know that 98% of us believe this fight is a farce, a travesty, an indication that Hopkins and Jones don't really care about anything but themselves. I know it's not happening when it should have, which is about 10 years ago. I know, and I agree with all of the naysayers. This fight, as a PPV, reeks. This fight overall sort of reeks. Hopkins claims to still be one of the best in the sport, but his last fight was with middleweight fringe contender Enrique Ornelas, and this one is with the completely shot Jones, who probably isn't even top 20 at light heavyweight anymore.

In most ways, this fight is a sham, and only marginally better than that last Azumah Nelson-Jeff Fenech fight.

But hear me out. I think this fight might well be very good, and I think we might be getting Jones-Hopkins at the only time where the fight itself was going to be much of a crowd pleaser.

I'm not suggesting anyone rush out and pay $50 for this, but I look at this matchup right now and I see two limited fighters who really don't like each other. Yeah, it's a money fight, but there is also the fact that it's a serious grudge match. Bernard and Roy do not get along. They are not pals outside the ring. They can barely fake their way through those silly "debate" press conferences they set up.

The last time I saw a couple of fairly limited fighters who really didn't like each other go at it, Antonio Escalante and Mickey Roman put on a war on ESPN2. That's an unfair comparison, I know. Escalante likes to bang and Roman has no clue what the hell this "defense" is that his trainer keeps talking about in the gym. They're also both in their oat sowing years still, which B-Hop and RJJ definitely are not.

So instead I jump over to MMA for a comparison. Last August, UFC 102 was headlined by Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, a couple of elder statesmen. Nogueira was only 33 at the time, but his best years are certainly behind him and he's taken a mountain of punishment over his career.

Couture-Nogueira was seen by most as a fight that would have been epic years ago, but now was just between a couple of guys past their primes. A lot of MMA fans slept on the fight.

They missed an instant classic. Couture and Nogueira fought each other like they were both 23 years old and had everything in the world to prove. There was no personal dislike there, but two professional titans went head-to-head. It felt almost like they were fighting for legacy supremacy. No matter when it happened, one could say he had beaten the other.

The '93 Jones-Hopkins fight is completely irrelevant to the current boxing world. Neither fighter fights like he did back then, in part because neither fighter can, and also because they both got a lot better, Hopkins in particular. This might as well be a clean slate for both of these guys. Realistically, they fought once on a Riddick Bowe undercard (an important and notable fight at the time, but not a "big fight"), and then when they both became flagship stars for the sport, they started a whole new chapter.

Even that video was a long, long time ago.

So where are we at now? Roy Jones Jr. is shot. There's no getting around it. He hasn't beaten anyone good in about seven years now, and has done a song-and-dance routine where he wins a few over inferior opponents and then loses in a money fight. Hopkins, meanwhile, finally lost his middleweight crown in two disputed bouts against Jermain Taylor, then stunned the world moving up and whooping Antonio Tarver to become light heavyweight king. After that, he beat Winky Wright, lost to Joe Calzaghe, and shocked us all again by dismantling Kelly Pavlik.

There's 86 years of boxing history coming to the ring for the main event on Saturday. And I expect this to be a fight. I realize I'm probably setting myself up to be let down, but I just have a feeling about this one. It's going to surpass all expectations. I truly believe this.

And no, nobody at Golden Boy or Square Ring are paying me to be excited about this fight. Just so you know that.

The thing is this: limited fighters match up and often make for great fights. The same can happen with two fighters whose skills have deteriorated, and I know everyone is in awe of what Bernard has been doing at his advanced age, but in no way, shape, or form is Bernard Hopkins at his peak now. He hasn't been for a while. He wasn't when he smashed Tarver or Pavlik, either.

I said when this fight first came up (before Green rattled Jones' cage in Australia) that I felt Roy Jones Jr. still had the style to give Hopkins hell. Despite Jones' ugly TKO loss to Green, and my own doubts that I'm actually right, I still feel that way. Bernard Hopkins can do the Mackie Shilstone stuff all he wants, but at the end of the day he's 45.

Jermain Taylor and Joe Calzaghe were athletic guys who made Bernard work a lot harder than he really wanted to, or could effectively work anymore. They both got the duke over Bernard in three fights. Hopkins against Calzaghe was flat-out winded by the latter stages of the fight.

Roy Jones can fight that sort of fight still. He's still a better athlete than Hopkins, still moves better, still throws in combination better, still is much quicker than Bernard -- and I mean much quicker. Bernard's notable wins over Tarver, Wright and Pavlik were, in a lot of ways, easy for him. Those guys didn't move a whole lot, didn't make Bernard step outside of his comfort zone. Hopkins is the boxing definition of a "cerebral assassin." He's an incredibly intelligent fighter, a guy who knows every trick in the book and wrote some of his own. He's also got Naazim Richardson in his corner, and Richardson may be the best tactical trainer in the game today.

The big flaws in Roy's game are flaws that might not be terribly exploitable for Bernard. The biggest is Roy's dodgy chin, of course, but I don't know if that'll honestly be an issue. All the good things you can say about Bernard Hopkins as a light heavyweight are true and all, but let's be real: he's not a puncher at 175 at all. Power is not part of his game. Danny Green is a guy who is incredibly strong, and Roy also went up to 180 pounds to fight Green. That was always a serious danger against Green. But I don't think it's something Roy should particularly worry about against Hopkins.

I have Hopkins ranked highly in our P4P list because I respect the hell out of him and because he's earned it. But my gut feeling is he's at the very, very end, and that this fight (win, lose, or draw) will show that. There's a reason he wants nothing to do with Chad Dawson, who he said would be like "another Kelly Pavlik" for him. I think he knows for a fact that Dawson would give him hell that Pavlik couldn't dream of. Beating Chad Dawson would do a lot more for Bernard Hopkins' legacy than beating the 41-year-old Jones can, because there's just nobody really taking this fight seriously outside of the biggest fans of both men. Jones is not a top light heavyweight. Bernard is, in a lot of minds, cherry-picking Roy at the tail end of Roy's career, to give himself some weird self-satisfaction.

If Hopkins wins, in 25 years they might be at a convention together, and Hopkins can say, "I beat Roy Jones." Roy Jones can say, "I beat Bernard Hopkins before he was an old man." Maybe that'll set up Hopkins-Jones III.

I bet 99.5% of the boxing fan world picks Bernard Hopkins. I bet 99.9% of the boxing writers pick Bernard Hopkins. I bet 99.9993% of boxers would pick Bernard Hopkins for this fight. I'm going to be the idiot that doesn't. I'm picking Roy Jones to bewilder Hopkins, to make him work harder than he can anymore, and to physically tire him into a spot where he just can't get much done. I'm gonna be so wrong it's not even funny. Jones UD-12

Saturday night's Jones-Hopkins II pay-per-view has taken a beating in the buildup. We'll get to the proper preview for the main event either tonight or tomorrow, but for now, let's look at the undercard. Remember, this is what you have to sit through for a few hours before you even get to the rematch, and if you buy, this is $50.

Junior Lightweights, 10 Rounds: Rocky Juarez v. Jason Litzau

As is rapidly becoming the custom, this is a 10-round fight even though it's for a minor title belt (NABF). It's by far the best matchup of the undercard, and I suppose you could argue it's the best and most relevant fight on the entire card, too.

Juarez (28-5-1, 20 KO) gave both Marco Antonio Barrera and Chris John tough fights, and then upon rematches was more easily and soundly defeated by both. He also was beaten badly by Juan Manuel Marquez, and was upset in 2005 by Humberto Soto (at least, it was a pretty big upset at the time). So his five losses have come to Barrera (twice), John, Marquez and Soto, and he got a gift draw, in my view, the first time against John.

This fight will be at 130 pounds, where Juarez has gone 2-2 in fights I think you can consider "proper" junior lightweight bouts. He's fought above the featherweight limit plenty more than that, but usually at around 128 pounds for smaller fights, like his fight with Emmanuel Lucero after the two bouts with Barrera. "Officially" at 130, he's fought Barrera two times, Marquez, and Jorge Barrios, in what was a heck of a good fight and one of the two best wins of his career (Zahir Raheem being the other).

Litzau (26-2, 21 KO) was an ESPN hype job, an "All-American boy" out of Minnesota who fought kind of like Roy Jones, all flash and cockiness and what looked to be good power. But he's been creamed the two times he's stepped up the ranks. In December 2006 on HBO, he was knocked out in eight by Jose Andres Hernandez, which was quite a surprise to most everyone, and then in 2008 he tried his luck against Robert Guerrero (again on HBO), and this time the beating he took didn't surprise much of anyone.

Both guys are brave, but have plenty of flaws. Juarez's key sin is that despite his good power and solid technique, he just doesn't let his hands go enough, and often digs himself some pretty big holes. He's given very good, even great fighters some real trouble when he does decide to get himself going offensively. Litzau, on the other hands, seems to have maybe lost his identity a little bit. The old style wasn't going to make him a serious titlist, because he's not Roy Jones with the reflexes or speed, and his chin isn't good enough to hold up to the bad shots he takes too frequently. Most chins aren't, though. Litzau really takes some flush shots.

The bottom line is this: though both have failed in their biggest fights, Juarez's biggest fights have been a lot bigger than Litzau's, and Litzau has never beaten anyone as good as Juarez, or anyone who I think is particularly close to Rocky's level. It might seem like a fairly even scrap on paper, and it's a good fight for both as they both badly need a victory, but I couldn't be more sure about the winner. Juarez TKO-8

Middleweights, 10 Rounds: Sergio Mora v. Calvin Green

"Latin Snake" Mora hasn't fought since September 2008, when he lost his 154-pound title back to Vernon Forrest, the fighter he'd upset three months earlier. The former "Contender" winner's career has stagnated since the end of his season of crappy TV, and he didn't even get any momentum for beating Forrest, which he really should have.

Overall, Mora's career has been a mess. He turned down a crack at the middleweight championship when he decided that Memphis gave Jermain Taylor too much of an advantage, then wound up fighting Elvin Ayala on Alfonso Gomez's ESPN Classic undercard. And Ayala drew him. I'll never forget Mora storming out of the ring after that fight. It was bad enough that he was fighting beneath Gomez-Ben Tackie (Gomez was an also-ran on the "Contender" season that Mora won), but then he couldn't even get the W.

He did come back strong, beating Rito Ruvalcaba and then Forrest, in a fight where he simply outlasted Forrest, and showed some real fire in the ring. In the rematch, though, Mora was sluggish, while this time Forrest was in better shape and proved his superiority as an all-around fighter. Vernon Forrest was really, really good, and great on his best days, so there's no shame in that. But now he's been off for a year and a half. A fight with Kelly Pavlik for last June fell through, as have others.

Now Mora (21-1-1, 5 KO) is facing Calvin Green (21-4-1, 13 KO), a pure club fighter out of Baytown, Texas. Green's record is manufactured, and isn't even that good to begin with. Green, 32, turned pro at 18 in 1996, and fought steadily for '96 and '97. He missed all of 1998, fought just once in 1999, and then fought steadily from 2000-03. He missed all of 2004. After one win in 2005, he retired for a full four years. He's gone 2-1 since returning.

All in all, Green likely has absolutely no shot at winning this fight. This is total showcase material for Mora's return, as apparently Golden Boy thinks there's still a market for Mora. Mora UD-10

Light Heavyweights, 10 Rounds: Ismayl Sillakh v. Daniel Judah

Another NABF title fight. 25-year-old Sillakh (11-0, 10 KO) is a legit prospect. Even though Judah (23-4-3, 10 KO) isn't more than a gateekeper, this is still a big step up in competition. Still, if Sillakh is for real, pure talent should carry him to a pretty convincing win. If he struggles with Judah, downgrade his prospects just slightly. It wouldn't mean he's not a good prospect still, but that maybe slowing down would be a good idea. I don't think he'll have much trouble. It is worth noting that Judah has only been stopped one time, and that was against Darnell "Ding-a-Ling Man" Wilson. Sillakh has starched just about everyone so far, but he's fought nobody. I'll tentatively call for the stoppage, though. Another "worth noting," however, is that Sillakh has never fought past six rounds, with one decision win in six and one TKO-6 win. Sillakh TKO-6

Off TV, Craig McEwan (17-0, 9 KO), James McGirt Jr. (21-2-1, 10 KO), and Yaundale Evans (5-0, 3 KO) all fight. Frankie Gomez and Julian Williams will make their pro debuts, too.

With the 17 years in the making rematch between Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins coming about in just four short days, let's look back at the last five fights for both fighters. This is going to be a fight week feature for all major fights from here on out, or if you don't want to consider this fight "major," all interesting enough fights. And, well, the last five fights feature for this one might be more relevant than just about any other.

We'll start with Roy.

Fight 1: Felix Trinidad (W-UD-12 / January 19, 2008)

Jones turned 39 three days before this fight at Madison Square Garden, paired up with former welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight titlist Tito Trinidad, who turned 35 nine days before the bout, and hadn't fought in nearly three years. He had been essentially retired by Bernard Hopkins in 2001 (he fought once more in Puerto Rico in 2002, then returned in 2004), and then announced his retirement after being similarly embarrassed by Winky Wright in May 2005.

The event was a money grab. Don King infamously grossly overcharged for ringside seats to the event, which predictably he had trouble selling. But the show did quite well on pay-per-view, turning in 500,000 buys. This was pretty significant, and spoke to the brand power of both Trinidad and Jones, the latter of whom was still rebuilding his career after three straight losses to Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson -- which included two ugly knockouts -- in 2004-05. After those fights, Jones picked off Prince Badi Ajamu and Anthony Hanshaw on small pay-per-view events.

This, of course, has been a recurring theme for Jones since the horrific loss to Johnson in '05. Lose to good fighters, rebuild some on easy marks, claim to be "back," lose to a good fighter again, rinse, repeat.

Jones did dominate Trinidad, and to this day I feel Roy sort of "carried" Tito through the 12 rounds. When he turned up the heat, he was obviously too big and strong for Trinidad, and even too fast. Roy at 39 was still fairly quick, especially compared to a bloated and rusty Trinidad. Hell, Roy at 41 still has speed. This fight was a physical mismatch. Jones, though old, is just a bigger man than Trinidad, and also was still in fighting shape. Trinidad was too little and clearly didn't carry 170 pounds well at all. Trinidad has not fought since.

Fight 2: Joe Calzaghe (L-UD-12 / November 8, 2008)

Hopkins had lost to Calzaghe earlier in 2008, and Joe returned to the States to pick the bones of another faded legend, though this time he wasn't doing it to a guy who was the Ring light heavyweight champion, who had been looking good in recent fights

Like in the Hopkins fight, Calzaghe was knocked down early. But while Hopkins made a go of it all night, Jones did not. Roy was clearly outclassed by Calzaghe, who at times even toyed with Roy. It didn't help Jones that his corner had absolutely no idea how to deal with a cut, as evidenced in that photo above and to your right. They did as bad a job on the cut as any corner could have. Roy was hung out to dry with that thing, not that it would have really made a difference.

Roy did fight bravely through the blood, and showed that he still had plenty of guts. But I also feel that, like the Trinidad fight but backwards, Calzaghe "carried" Roy a little bit. Joe's hands had become so fragile that he couldn't really punch with much authority by this point, but he could have abused the cut more than he did and get it stopped. He didn't. Instead, he cruised to a decision.

This fight is notable for a couple of things:

1. Easily the worst HBO "24/7" in the history of the series;
2. A firm confirmation that American audiences didn't give a hoot about Joe Calzaghe. The show did less than half of what HBO figured it would on PPV, and less than half of the Jones-Trinidad bout from earlier in the year (500K was their projection, reportedly). The show did 220,000 buys on PPV.

It was also the last time Calzaghe fought, but for different reasons than Trinidad.

Fight 3: Omar Sheika (W-TKO-5 / March 21, 2009)

The famed March Badness show (read the live thread if you have some time to kill). Sheika, a journeyman who had had a few big fights years back, had been out of the ring since September 2007. He had losses on his sheet to Calzaghe, Markus Beyer, Jeff Lacy, Scott Pemberton (twice), Eric Lucas, Thomas Tate, and an early career points loss to can Tony Booth. In other words, Sheika was old, rusty, and never really got over the hump in the first place.

So the fight was a sham, no better than the Ajamu fight or the Hanshaw fight, and I'd even throw the Trinidad fight in the same league except Trinidad is a big name. But whatever. Jones slapped Sheika around some, but couldn't discourage him in the slightest. After four rounds, I had Roy up 4-0, and then it was stopped in the fifth by referee Tommy Kimmons. It was an awful stoppage, as Sheika was looking right at Jones and still fighting. He wasn't hurt one bit and certainly wasn't in any real danger. He wasn't fighting very well, but it was a very early hook.

I ranked this fight as the eleventh-worst TV fight of 2009 in December. Overall it was a pretty wretched night of fights for both boxing and MMA.

Also noteworthy: though the stoppage was, in my view, incredibly premature, this was Jones' first win inside the distance since he'd beaten the tar out of Clinton Woods in 2002, which I consider to be the last of the "true" Roy Jones performances. (The heavyweight fight with John Ruiz was something of a novelty, and he was never the same after.)

Fight 4: Jeff Lacy (W-RTD-10 / August 15, 2009)

I got married on this day, so I couldn't be truly in the moment watching the fight, as I didn't watch it until the next afternoon when I got home. Jones looked very good, and earned some rave reviews. "He's back!" they said. I gladly noted that Jones had indeed looked sharp, but argued that he was certainly not back.

For starters, Lacy was not on the radar at 168 when Jermain Taylor dominated him out of that division, and he's just plain not good anymore. He's not a fringe contender, he's simply not any good. Lacy had come into this fight with this for recent output:

• The terrible beating at Calzaghe's hands
• Fights against Vitali Tsypko (MD-10), Peter Manfredo Jr. (UD-10) and Epi Mendoza (MD-10), all of which he won but you can argue well that he lost
• A one-sided loss to Taylor
• Another tight win against Otis Griffin (MD-10)

So who did Jones really beat? He beat a guy who at 32 was even more washed up than Roy Jones. Lacy hadn't looked good since beating Scott Pemberton before he was made to look like a scrub by Calzaghe. It had been years. This was not any better than Sheika or Trinidad.

Fight 5: Danny Green (L-TKO-1 / December 2, 2009)

I said right after this fight happened that I had the feeling they'd still do the rematch with Hopkins, and that I was OK with it. I still am. I didn't really have that much interest in it before, and Jones getting stopped by Green in one round dropped that even more, but hey, I'm still buying the fight.

I'll say this. Having watched the fight several times at this point, you can certainly argue that the punch that put Roy down was behind the head, and that the referee maybe stopped it a bit early. You can argue that. I don't think it was an early stoppage. Yeah, Roy wasn't being hit, but Roy Jones had been in pro boxing by this time for 20 years and seven months. He knows you have to punch back or risk being stopped. He initially made no excuses, then made some excuses about Green's handwraps (weeks later), and since has just kind of ignored that the fight ever happened.

So what are we looking at with Roy Jones Jr.'s last five? Three wins that I think are fairly meaningless, the second-worst beating of his career against Calzaghe, and a one-round stoppage loss against Danny Green. Jones is 41 years old now, frighteningly well past his best days, and really hasn't even been competitive against a top opponent since 2003.

The look back at Hopkins' last five is after the jump.

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Saturday's rematch between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. will be playing in select movie theaters nationwide, the same as the Mayweather-Marquez fight but probably, you know, with less sales.

NCM Fathom is distributing the event, which will be available in more than 150 theaters in the United States. There's a complete list of theaters on their site, in PDF format.

From the NCM Fathom press release:

"Tens of thousands of boxing fans around the country proved they have an appetite for seeing boxing on the big screen as they enjoyed the larger-than-life, ringside experience of the Mayweather vs. Marquez in-theater event last September," said Dan Diamond, vice president of Fathom. "This exclusive partnership with Golden Boy Promotions allows Fathom to continue to present the biggest boxing events of 2010 to communities of fans nationwide and Hopkins vs. Jones promises to be a true classic to start the year."

It's good to know that Golden Boy sees the potential value in distributing the fight this way. I know most of "us" (diehard boxing fans) aren't particularly dying with anticipation over Hopkins-Jones II, but it's still cool to hear they're going to the theaters again.

Bad Left Hook will have more coverage of the Hopkins-Jones fight and the full undercard this week, leading up to our live, round-by-round coverage, scoring and analysis on Saturday night.

The three-fight televised undercard for the April 3 PPV rematch between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. is finally officially set. Here's the lineup, and now you can all decide for sure whether or not you'll be spending your hard-earned cash on a rematch that's coming about, oh, ten years too late.

Featherweights: Rocky Juarez v. Jason Litzau

This one was suggested early in the talks and seemed to make all the sense in the world for both guys, who could badly use a win like this. Juarez (28-5-1, 20 KO) is becoming famous as a just-short contender, a guy who's gone 0-4-1 challenging for major titles at 126 and 130, and 0-5-1 if you count his loss to Humberto Soto for the interim WBC featherweight belt in 2005. He's got talent, but his mental lapses doomed him in the first fight against Chris John (where he got a gift draw), and he was barely shy of beating Marco Antonio Barrera in their first encounter, too. But in the rematches with both and his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez, he was just beaten by better fighters, and clearly so.

But Litzau is not Marquez, Barrera or John. The Minnesotan (26-2, 21 KO) put on a terrible show at Camp Lejuene against Johnnie Edwards in November, seeming tentative and unable to let his hands go. When he was coming up the ranks and getting a lot of TV hype, Litzau was known as an exciting, cocky fighter with some real power. Then he got an HBO fight with Jose Andres Hernandez in 2006 and was knocked out in eight. A year and change later, Robert Guerrero beat him from pillar to post, another KO-8.

This could be a really good fight if both guys throw punches. They both have some power. Juarez has shown a far better chin. I don't really see a way that Litzau beats Juarez, to be honest, but I do see a way this fight could really stink. Both guys badly need the win, as I said -- that could also mean both guys fight afraid to lose again.

Junior Middleweights: Sergio Mora v. Calvin Green

Mora (21-1-1, 5 KO) has not fought in almost two years, since losing his rematch with Vernon Forrest on the Casamayor-Marquez card. Green (21-4-1, 13 KO) is a 32-year-old club fighter from Baytown, Texas. This is a pure mismatch and has no business being paid for. The Golden Boy press release tries to hype Green for winning three of his last four fights, but doesn't note that those wins came over guys with incoming records of 10-9, 8-21-4, and 4-6-1. His loss came to Darnell Boone, a TKO-7 where he was well behind on the cards. He's never beaten a good fighter.

Light Heavyweights: Ismayl Sillakh v. Daniel Judah

Should be a Sillakh rout, but this is a prospect worth watching, as we've discussed before. Judah is now a pure gatekeeper, but there are worse gatekeepers out there.