Jeff Pryor assesses this past Saturday night's light-heavyweight clash between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones.

It can be said that the twenty four rounds shared between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. over the course of their long careers never lived up to what could have been.

Their first fight was fought a shade too early in their careers to showcase the real talent and skill these men would go on to show in their primes. That first bout Jones won competitive and clear, but as HBO announcer Larry Merchant said of Jones at the time, he's winning the rounds... but he's not winning by much.

In their second bout, Hopkins dominated an eventful, but lackluster back end of their encounters. Jones was unable and unwilling to attack and while Hopkins seemed determined to gain every advantage possible, illicit or otherwise, he failed to live up to what other fighters have done against this increasingly decrepit version of Roy Jones.

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As I'm sure you know by now, 17 years has passed since Roy Jones took a dull 12 round decision over Bernard Hopkins to earn his first world title belt. Now that both men are in their 40's and have been undisputed champions belts mean almost nothing to them. This fight is about closure. Jones wants to prove that he is the better fighter and Hopkins wants to beat up the man who wouldn't give him a fair shake when they were in their primes. Finally, they'll get a chance to hit each other.

This all came about in a weird way. Roy went down under and was knocked in the first round by Aussie hardman Danny Green. A right hand to the neck ruined his chances of getting 50-50 or better against Hopkins. He'll be getting significantly less than 50% for this fight, but maybe that's what it was always going to take. Someone's ego had to be deflated because these two Hall Of Fame fighters are as stubborn as they come.

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Jeff Pryor takes a look at the motivations behind the rematch between Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones.

Seventeen years and 43 days later, here we go... the sequel to what was a competitive, but clear and passionless victory of one future hall of famer over another. "Roy Jones jr. and Bernard Hopkins 2: Judgement day" coming this spring. We all know the history between the two and the individual marks of their glories in the ring apart. A strong argument can be made that either man has the better accomplishments now, but it's probably unfair to set this matchup for all the marbles given Jones fall from grace. So what exactly is the reason we are finally privy to this encore bout?

One of the more interesting facets of what some might call a fairly useless fight, is what each man's motivations are at this point in their career and what brought them finally into the ring against the other.

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