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Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was scheduled to throw hands with fellow veteran pugilist Roy Jones Jr. in an eight-round exhibition bout on Sept. 12 inside Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
Then promoters opted to delay the fight until Nov. 28, which doesn’t sit well with Jones.
“Why would I change the date and mess up the rest of my year when I agreed to September 12?” Jones Jr. said to The Daily Mail. “They said they wanted to get a crowd, if you want to get a crowd, that’s a different type of money. If you want a big event, that’s a different type of money. You think I’m going to say, okay, let’s look at my money, but I’m not getting no better percent. How dumb is that to me? So let’s see what happens.”
A crowd seems unlikely given the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
Jones, 51, has not competed since capturing a decision victory over Scott Sigmon in early 2018. The recently-resurrected Tyson, now 54, has been inactive since falling to Kevin McBride way back in 2005.
“I’ve had to cancel other stuff to be out here, it’s upset my calendar, I’ve got to change things,” Jones Jr. continued. “That’s why we have to table it and renegotiate now. That’s the biggest issue, I’m not a full time boxer anymore so I do other things to make an income. If I can’t do other things then I should be compensated for that, because it changes the schematics. It’s not acceptable.”
The future of the fight now rests in the hands of his lawyers.