Roy Jones Jr fighting again on February 8

48-year-old Roy Jones Jr, arguably the greatest fighter of the 1990s and once the clear pound-for-pound ruler of boxing, will fight yet again on February 8 in his hometown of Pensacola, Florida, and while ESPN is reporting it as his “final fight,” Jones is really careful to only say it’ll be his final fight in Pensacola:

Jones (65-9, 47 KO) has won three straight fights following a brutally ugly knockout loss to Enzo Maccarinelli in December 2015, which ended Jones’ experiment with trying to make himself a big star in Russia. That most recent trio of outings has all come on American soil, to little fanfare, including one fight in March 2016 when he beat a guy named Vyron Phillips who essentially won a contest to face Jones, and had never professionally boxed before.

Most recently, he beat Rodney Moore in August 2016, and veteran brawler Bobby Gunn in February 2017.

Jones is long overdue to hang up the gloves for real, as he hasn’t been a serious top fighter since his three straight losses to Antonio Tarver (twice) and Glen Johnson in 2004-05, but at this point, it is what it is. Jones has fought on because he wants to fight, chalking up lots of relatively easy wins, and occasionally testing himself against a serious opponent when he’s won a few, which pretty much always leads to a loss.

The February fight in Florida should be another easy pickings type of matchup. For one thing, it’s happening in a month, and there’s no opponent named yet, and for another thing, it’s in the U.S., where he hasn’t had anything close to a major fight since losing to Bernard Hopkins in their ill-advised 2010 rematch.

All that said, hopefully it will be Jones’ true last fight. Go out with a win, avoid anything happening that is worse than all that has already happened, and maybe he can find his peace away from the ring.