When he succeeded in pressing Roy Jones Jr. to the ropes, Antonio Tarver was able to land some hard combinations. AP
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Roy Jones Jr. returned to the ring Saturday night after a year of inactivity and delivered a stunning display of speed, fiercely-focused aggression and withering combination punching -- for about, oh, three seconds in the fifth round.

For the rest of his 12-round light heavyweight championship rubber match with Antonio Tarver, Jones, once considered the finest fighter of his generation, seemed intent on posing, shimmying, mugging and, above all, avoiding anything resembling a fist fight.

For his part, Tarver delivered a very disciplined, sound performance -- though he, too, did little to seize the moment in what was being trumpeted as a legacy-defining bout. Instead, he contented himself with following Jones around the ring, ignoring the near-ceaseless barrage of feints and flicks and stuck-out tongues, scoring when he could with right jabs and hooks, the occasional straight left and some good body work.

When he succeeded in pressing Jones to the ropes, Tarver was able (and willing) to unload a little and he landed some harder combinations. In the 11th he rocked Jones badly and for a moment it seemed Tarver (who had stopped Jones in their second bout) might score another KO. But then Tarver seemed to run out of gas and came perilously close to collapsing himself. He hung on to survive the round and then negotiated the 12th with a mixture of aggression and discretion. He clearly deserved the victory, and the judges gave it to him, unanimously. Judge Peter Trematerra scored it 117-111, while Paul Herman and Michael Pernick had it 116-112. (I was in agreement with the Herman-Pernick view.)

So, to return to the matter of legacies: Tarver presumably will have a few more opportunities to burnish his. Jones, however, seems only to be tarnishing what was once one of the sport's brightest. After the fight, he declared, "I'll be back," adding "Can't nobody else beat me but Tarver." That may be true in today's light heavy ranks (though former champ Glen Johnson, who stopped George Khalid Jones in Brooks, Calif., Friday night, might take issue, having knocked Jones cold a year ago in Jones' last bout before Saturday night's), but so what? Say Jones does use his still-dazzling speed to vamp and pose his way to some more wins. That shouldn't persuade anyone that he is still the fighter he once was. In fact, more performances like Saturday night's -- in which Jones so resolutely avoided really mixing it up and then wobbled dangerously the first time he was really tagged -- would have me reconsidering just how great a fighter he really was.

The popular sense during Jones' long prime was that he was "too good for his own good," that he won too easily and never had an opponent who could really test him and bring out his best. The flip side of that view is that he never had an opponent -- among the many no-names he vanquished in places like Portland, Ore., Biloxi, Miss., and Mashantucket, Conn. -- who could expose his limitations, chief among those, it seems, a very suspect chin and a safety-first philosophy. True, he moved up to heavyweight and soundly beat John Ruiz for a share of the title. But Ruiz has never been an explosive puncher; he's slow and a mauler, tailor-made for an opponent as fast and mobile as Jones. There was a reason Jones didn't defend his heavyweight crown.

The greatest champions of the past -- fighters such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Harry Greb and Ezzard Charles -- all lost their share of bouts and fought on without undermining their reputations. But I don't see Jones in that category. The images of his knockout losses to Tarver and Johnson are still too frighteningly vivid to allow me to think that his most recent performance was any kind of a return to form. He may indeed fight on, but -- as SI boxing writer Richard Hoffer likes to say (about many situations) -- "It never ends pretty." If Saturday night's display is as ugly as it gets, Jones, and all of us, will be lucky.