With Silva hurt, Roy Jones Jr wants to box Nick Diaz
For years Anderson Silva and Roy Jones Jr. have expressed the desire to face each other, in a boxing match….
For years Anderson Silva and Roy Jones Jr. have expressed the desire to face each other, in a boxing match.
That’s his lifelong dream, said Jones of Silva. We’ve got to make that happen. If (Silva) beats Weidman, then we’ll do a boxing match.”
UFC president Dana White had said, however grudgingly, that he would consider the bout.
These two drive me crazy. They drive me crazy, said White recently. 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.”
Jones boxed this month in Russia, and attended UFC 168 live to hype a potential fight. Then Anderson Silva’s leg snapped in half fighting Chris Weidman.
Undeterred, Jones now says he wants to fight Nick Diaz, and idea the pair first floated in 2009. MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani has the story.
The former boxing champion said that his top choice has always been to box Silva but now that that’s off the table, he’s very interested in boxing Nick Diaz. Jones Jr. said he told UFC president Dana White about his desire to box Diaz, and White told him he’d think about it. Given Diaz’s contract with the UFC, White would obviously have to be on board with the idea for the fight to happen.
Of course, The 30-year-old Diaz, who walked away from MMA in March following his UFC 158 loss to Georges St-Pierre, recently turned down a rematch against Carlos Condit. He has maintained that he would only return to MMA if he was offered a chance to fight GSP or Silva, but he has also always expressed a desire to try his hand at boxing.