"Bernard Hopkins is a shark. He's a bottom feeder. He's catfish. He's waiting around for someone to die, and then he'll bite into them." - Roy Jones Jnr
Although both men are in the autumn of their careers, the Jones Jnr-Hopkins rematch on April 3 represents more than merely an opportunity for the two to secure a final payday. The ferocity of the pre-fight rhetoric hints that both men have a point to prove 17 years after their first meeting, which Jones Jnr won.
After suffering a first-round knockout in his most recent fight, Jones Jnr will be desperate to denounce the perception that he is finished at the top level of boxing. He believes that there is no better way to disprove this theory than by harking back to his glory years and defeating Hopkins.
For his part, Hopkins eyes the fight as an opportunity to exorcise the ghosts of a fight in which he was outclassed against an opponent who has subsequently declared himself "[Hopkins'] worst nightmare". In the years following their first encounter, Hopkins made half-hearted attempts to organise a rematch, only to be repelled by Jones Jnr on each occasion - until now.
Going into the initial contest, which was for the vacant IBF middleweight belt on May 22, 1993, Jones Jnr was the favourite - as a silver medallist at the 1988 Olympic Games, and undefeated as a professional, he possessed the more impressive track record.
Hopkins had lost his first professional fight in 1988, although he went on to win 20 consecutive contests between February 1990 and September 1992 - helping to forge a strong reputation after that ignominious start to his career.
Despite Hopkins' run of victories heading into the fight, the perception remained that Jones Jnr was the cannier operator - and so it proved. Jones Jnr was awarded the victory via a unanimous points decision, with each judge scoring the match 116-112.
Hopkins conceded afterwards that he had been outclassed: "He was just the all-round better fighter, all-round quicker, all-round smarter." Hopkins was more impulsive in his approach, the less willing of the two to adhere to a pre-fight strategy as the contest reached its later rounds.
"He was trying to win by any means necessary," recalls Jones Jnr. "If he couldn't out-box you, he'd try to out-fight you. He tried all of that and none of it worked. He just couldn't get away from my jab and none of the tricks that he tried would work."
Jones Jnr's victory was considered all the more impressive after he made the post-fight revelation that he had defeated Hopkins with just one functioning fist. "My right hand was pretty much fractured," Jones Jnr said after the fight.
Although both had exhibited enough technical aptitude to confirm themselves as potential stars of the sport, the bout was only to attract intrigue in the years that followed as the fighters' careers continued on an upward trajectory.
Jones Jnr would go on to be considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet, possessing a fearsome combination of speed and power that allowed him to become a world champion at four weight divisions; he moved up to super-middleweight after the Hopkins fight, before eventually becoming heavyweight champion by defeating John Ruiz.
Jones' Jnr's progression up the divisions allowed Hopkins to stake a successful claim for the middleweight title. He would go on to dominate for more than a decade by making a record 20 defences, all the while declaring how the defeat to Jones Jnr contributed to his eventual success. "That fight there helped sculpture the character and my psyche of going in that ring and training," he said.
But the one blot on his copybook throughout Hopkins' glory years remained the comprehensive defeat he suffered against Jones Jnr. On Saturday, he has the opportunity to put the record straight - and how he would love to bite back at his long-time rival.
Source: espn.co.uk
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