Rick Reeno of BoxingScene.com reports that the thought to be dead rematch between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. isn't quite as lifeless as we all might wish. Richard Schaefer told the site that Hopkins still feels there's unfinished business, and referenced the Jones protest of Danny Green's handwraps after his first round TKO loss to Green on December 2.
"I've had numerous conversations with Bernard and there is still that unfinished business. Roy and Bernard have a deep dislike for each other. Jones filed a protest over the handwraps. I read the complaint and it's pretty interesting. That is a possibility," Schaefer told BoxingScene.com.
What they're attempting to do is excuse Jones' loss to Green with Jones' hard-to-swallow wraps protest, and wait just long enough that you forget that Roy Jones just got run over by a pretty good fighter, so that they can set up a boring rematch between two old men, something the public seemed OK with, I thought, when they first brought it up last year. But after Jones lost to Green, it seemed everybody went, "Well, that's that."
Of course, you might still desire Hopkins-Jones, and I guess so long as we stop believing Hopkins is one of the best light heavyweights in the world, I'm fairly OK with it, too. It's an old grudge, there's history in and out of the ring between them, and they likely still want a piece of each other just as bad as they did in November. Its appeal to the public is another story, especially considering the egos of these guys, and the fact that they'll think it's a pay-per-view fight, which might also be necessitated if HBO has no interest in overpaying for a couple of guys in their 40s to settle a score most people aren't that invested in anymore.