Roy Jones Jr. is targeting a showdown with a former MMA world champion.
The 56-year-old from Pensacola, Florida has not fought since April 2023 when he was defeated by Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis, another MMA star who made the transition into professional boxing.
At his peak, Jones was one of, if not the best fighter on the planet. The majority of his dominance came during the 1990’s, where he defeated a number of the greatest fighters of that era including Mike McCallum, Montell Griffin and Bernard Hopkins.
Jones made a sensational move up to heavyweight in the spring of 2003 to dethrone WBA world heavyweight champion John Ruiz, although he would return to light heavyweight immediately after this to unify the WBC and WBA world titles at 175lbs against Antonio Tarver.
In an interview with Covers, Jones made it clear that he was interest in a bout against Brazilian MMA icon Anderson ‘Spider’ Silva, claiming it would be ‘one of the biggest’ events across combat sports.
“The fight that really started this crossover boxing, even before Conor McGregor got involved in it, the first fight that was on the horizon that we said would be a big event would be Roy Jones versus Anderson Silva and I’m never going to back away from that and say that’s not one of the biggest events that could happen today.”
Since drawing the curtain on his MMA career, Silva has appeared as a professional boxer on several occasions, facing Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, Tito Ortiz and Jake Paul, who defeated the 49-year-old from Sao Paulo via unanimous decision in October 2022.
