This weekend marks the 10th Anniversary of the Roy Jones Bernard Hopkins Rematch. 10 years ago the historic meeting took place, and to this day this encounter remains a highly underrated and largely misinterpreted match. Many boxing fans continue to try and act like Hopkins dominated Jones and use this arugment as proof that Hopkins became a better fighter than Roy Jones. But nothing like that came close to happening. What really happened 10 years ago was Roy Jones Jr turned back the clocks and surprised his doubters and fought better than anyone expected, giving Hopkins all kinds of problems. Hopkins ended up on the canvas 3 times from borderline shots that could have been ruled knockdowns but Hopkins was saved by Tony Weeks each time who gave B-Hop all kinds of time to recover when he would have likely been knocked out had they been ruled knockdowns. At times Hopkins was on the floor rolling around in agony from retaliatory shots after he was the one fouling! It was an embarrassing display from Hopkins who was expected to easily dispatch of a so-called shot Jones. It turned into an absolute war and Hopkins was so beat up by the end of it he said he was seeing spots in the post fight interview. It was Hopkins who's gameplan was to foul Roy Jones at every opportunity, from rabbit punches to headbutts to blatant low blows. Whilst Roy Jones simply took his time landed many clean eye catching shots on Hopkins throughout the bout. When B-Hop wasn't doing everything he could possibly do to foul Roy Jones in every conceivable way, Roy Jones was smothering Hopkins on the inside with high level blocking and evasion techniques. This was arguably the last great Roy Jones performance and it's about time that it's recognized as such. I still to this day cannot believe that Hopkins was able to foul and bully his way to a decision win whilst being saved by Weeks on 3 separate occasions. 10 years ago, Roy Jones proved how great he still was, and it's about time that his performance is recognized on this Anniversary.
