Denis Lebedev Knocks Out Roy Jones Jr in Final Round

Well, it didn't end in the first few rounds like many expected, but it definitely ended with a bang -- and a scare.

Denis Lebedev put in a subpar performance that looked at times like a carry of American veteran star Roy Jones Jr in Moscow, rarely attacking with any consistency or fury, and often letting a covered-up Jones off the ropes for the first nine rounds. Going into the tenth round, Bad Left Hook had Lebedev ahead on our scorecard, 88-83, but the fight had very little action.

And then in the tenth and final round, Lebedev unleashed a late flurry of punches that put Roy to sleep on his feet with 11 seconds left in the round, and a final right hook sent the 42-year-old Jones crashing to the canvas. Official time of the knockout was 2:59 of the tenth round.

But the scene wasn't exciting so much as it was genuinely troubling. Jones' eyes looked heavy for much of the fight, and between rounds in the corner he truly looked like he was falling asleep. You never, ever want to see something like that, and to watch him hit the mat so awkwardly and helplessly after some clean shots rattled his head around was enjoyable for nobody.

We are at the point now where all that's left for Jones to do is get hurt. He got to his feet and did a post-fight, in-ring interview, but I can say I truly never want to see him do an in-ring interview again, unless he starts conducting them for HBO.

Outside of some notoriety with people who don't know better, this win does nothing for Lebedev. He was already a top cruiserweight coming into the fight, and his exhibition against the old bones of Jones showed us nothing we haven't seen before, and really showed us far less of what we already knew was there. After the fight, Kostya Tszyu called out Danny Green on Lebedev's behalf.

The only thing to take away from this is hoping that this was Roy Jones Jr's last fight. But it won't be.

We'll be continuing with live coverage today, first at 3 p.m. EDT with the Cleverly vs Kuziemski / DeGale vs Groves event from London (Sky Box Office in the UK, Epix and EpixHD.com in the US), and later at 10 p.m. EDT with Pascal vs Hopkins II / Dawson vs Diaconu from Montreal (HBO in the US, Sky in the UK, Indigo in Canada).