Evidently Anderson Silva and Roy Jones Jr. aren’t the only two men who believe they’ll clash in a boxing match in the near future.
On the Dec. 4 episode of FOX Sports Live, UFC president Dana White admitted that he felt obligated to endorse a boxing match between the 38-year-old Silva and the soon-to-be 45-year-old Jones.
These two drive me crazy. They drive me crazy. First of all, Roy Jones Jr. is a longtime friend of mine. When I was a 19-year-old kid in the boxing business, Roy Jones was very good to me. So I’m in this position where I feel like Roy wants to fight him, he wants to fight Roy—I feel like I’m in this position to try to make both of these guys happy. But it drives me crazy. I would love Roy Jones Jr. to focus on his next opponent and Anderson to focus on his. We’ll talk about all this stuff. I know Roy’s coming to the fight. … We’ll see what happens.
The idea of a scrap between the two men seemed unlikely when Silva suffered his first KO loss and relinquished the middleweight strap he’d held since 2006 to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 in July.
But Jones brought the idea of a fight with Silva back to light by telling John Dennen of Boxing News that he still plans to pursue a bout with “The Spider,” but only if he bests Weidman in their rematch at UFC 168.
“So if he beats Weidman, I’ve got to be ready for it because he’s going to be coming for me and I want to be ready when he comes for me. I want to give him what he wants. … He said that’s his lifelong dream. We’ve got to make that happen. He’s a great striker and a great defender.”
White seemed more rational at the end of his above statement, saying, “I would love Roy Jones Jr. to focus on his next opponent and Anderson to focus on his.”
It’s obvious that neither Silva nor Jones stand anything to gain by pondering a fight with one another at this point.
After all, Silva has arguably the most significant fight of his career on the horizon with Weidman, and Jones has a WBU Cruiserweight title bout slated with Zine Eddine Benmakhlouf on Dec. 21.
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