Jones Jr. Hoping To Resurrect ‘Spider’ Fight Post-Tyson

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Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion Anderson Silva has been trying to fight boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. for more than 12 years, but contractual obligations to mixed martial arts (MMA) kept getting in the way.

UFC President Dana White gave us the dreaded “we’ll see what happens” a few years back and not surprisingly, we did not see and nothing happened. But that doesn’t mean Jones Jr. has given up hope of finally tangling with “The Spider.”

“He always wanted to make a fight with me, they just never allowed him the opportunity to do it, or they never had the right time to do it,” Jones Jr. told MMA Fighting. “We both gave our words that if we ever got the opportunity, we would. I did give him my word that if the opportunity came, I would, so after this fight, he could get it.”

Jones Jr. is currently booked to fight former heavyweight boxing champion “Iron” Mike Tyson in a (cough) “exhibition bout” on Sat., Sept. 12, 2020 inside Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif., which may need to reconsider its name after adding this shitshow.

Sadly, a potential “Spider” fight does not sound as appealing as it did back in 2008 when prime Silva was still just 33 and Jones Jr. was 39. Silva is now 45 and has just one victory over the last eight years and looks increasing brittle in each appearance.