The world’s top pound-for-pound fighter of this generation faces off with arguably the top pound-for-pound fighter today, when Roy Jones, Jr. fights Joe Calzaghe on Saturday in New York. Jones held the mythical crown for a solid decade, circa 1994-2004. Calzaghe is seen by many as the best in the world right now.

For the last four years, Roy Jones has spent half of his time losing, and the other half trying to bounce back from losses. This fight may be his final chance at redemption and a return to the top. Calzaghe has been spending that time trying to get recognized for his accomplishments, as each one of his wins gets retroactively downgraded through no fault of his own.

When Calzaghe embarrassed Jeff Lacy, it was a career victory. Lacy was the favorite, and most did not think Calzaghe would be able to handle his power. Calzaghe beat the living daylights out of him, and pretty much ended Lacy’s career. At the time, it was a great win. Now that Lacy is about one fight away from retiring, people say the win wasn’t that great. They don’t take into account the fact that it was Calzaghe who broke Lacy, not that Lacy was actually bad when they fought. One Calzaghe brutal beating and a terrible shoulder injury later, people want to say that Calzaghe’s win over Lacy wasn’t a good win. Ridiculous.

Then, it was that he’d never fight Mikkel Kessler, and if he did, he’d lose. Well, he didn’t beat him like he did Lacy, but he sure beat him convincingly. So after that fight, the excuse was that Kessler was never that good anyway and Joe should have beaten him.

Then came Bernard Hopkins. Going up in weight, Calzaghe edged Hopkins in a close but very fair decision. Now that Hopkins whipped Kelly Pavlik, the prevailing argument is that Hopkins would certainly win a rematch, so Joe’s first win is meaningless.

No matter what Joe Calzaghe does, it’s not good enough. If he beats Jones this weekend, he’s just beating a past his prime, washed-up, has-been. Or so they’ll say.

But give credit where credit is due. Calzaghe is the undefeated champion of two weight classes, and has a handful of very notable and reputable wins. Jones may be on the downside of his career, but is still one of the five best light-heavyweights in the world. A win for Calzaghe here cements his legacy and will allow him to retire as the champion.

Jones, on the other hand, is trying to regain the crown he once wore. Since that fateful left-hand from Antonio Tarver in 2004, Jones has been trying to get off the canvas and reclaim his throne. But one knockout led to another just four months later, which led to a very cautious rubber match with Tarver, resulting in three straight defeats. The former king of boxing looked as good as dead.

His last loss was in 2005. Since then, Jones has won three straight fights. His most recent win over Tito Trinidad, was the best Jones has looked in the ring since beating heavyweight John Ruiz. It’s not that Trinidad is really that good anymore, it’s that Roy looked like Roy.

That’s the determining characteristic of this fight. If Roy is Roy, he can beat Calzaghe. If Roy is the guy who was timid in Tarver III, or unwilling to let his hands go, as he was against Glen Johnson, then Calzaghe may very well overwhelm him.

So how do you predict what Roy Jones will show up? The only way to figure that out is to look at the progression of Jones’ fighting style since the Ruiz fight.

After beating Ruiz at heavyweight, Jones moved back down to light-heavyweight and narrowly defeated Tarver. Jones was sluggish and clearly drained from the weight loss, but gutted out the win with a strong effort in the late rounds. He wasn’t fearful, he was just sluggish.

In Tarver II, Jones dominated the first round and looked like old school Roy. Then Tarver landed a perfect left hand that knocked Jones out. He got right back in the ring just four months later and Jones looked very fearful of getting hit. Johnson would not stop throwing punches, so Roy spent most of the fight on the ropes covering up. When Johnson finally knocked him out, he hurt him worse than Tarver did.

His next fight was again with Tarver, and Roy fought as if his only goal was to not get knocked out. Tarver played along and the two slow-danced their way to a boring decision. That was the point in which Jones started to believe that he can win fights again. He knew he could still survive 12 rounds.

So he took a soft fight with Prince Badi Ajamu, and Roy boxed his way to an easy win. His next fight he got a little more aggressive and outboxed and hurt Anthony Hanshaw. That led up to his most recent fight with Tito Trinidad, in which Roy let Tito overwork himself early, then opened up his right hand and started to beat the hell out of him. Jones dominated that fight, but most importantly, he fought like Roy Jones would have fought in 2003.

There was a progression in Jones comeback that should have him ready to peak in this fight. All of his “comeback” fights were building to a shot at redemption, and a fight with the pound-for-pound number one is that shot. There is no reason to believe Roy won’t attempt to fight this fight the way he would have in 2003.

So if Jones fights like his old self, how does this fight shape up?

We know how Calzaghe is going to fight. He’ll be the one coming forward and he’ll be the one throwing the majority of the punches. Calzaghe doesn’t have great power, so I’d expect Roy to spend a lot of time on the ropes in the early rounds, allowing Calzaghe to wail away on his body and arms.

As Roy takes advantage of referee breaks, he’ll move back to the middle of the ring. Nobody in the world is better at repositioning themselves after a clinch than Jones. When you hear “break”, get ready to see Jones magically appear in the middle of the ring, where he’ll unleash his lead right hand.

As we saw against Hopkins, Calzaghe can be caught with a right hand as he’s walking in. And as we saw against Trinidad, Jones throws that punch as well as anyone in the game.

The key to this fight is that punch and overall volume. If Jones can land that right hand a few times, it will cut Calzaghe’s volume down to where Jones can outwork him and take a decision. If Jones doesn’t let his hands go in the middle of the ring, Calzaghe will just throw too many punches, and Jones will be left in the same spot as Hopkins. You can fight Calzaghe well, but when he throws as many punches as he does, it’s tough to win rounds against him.

I can see either scenario happening here, but I think Calzaghe will have to land something on Jones to gain his respect to win the fight. If Jones doesn’t respect Calzaghe’s power, and isn’t hurt by him, he’ll win the fight. Jones has a solid edge in hand-speed, and if he can land a few punches to level out the volume, Jones will win this fight. But Calzaghe’s never been beaten, and that must be respected. There is a good chance that Calzaghe now is just a little better than Jones now.

I think this fight is going the distance, and for betting purposes, the only play is to take the +250 on Jones. This fight is a pick ‘em at best, and neither guy should be a two-and-a-half to one underdog. In the end, I think that Jones hand-speed and experience just edge out the undefeated champ in a very close, split-decision.

Prediction: Jones by split-decision.

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