Roy Jones Jr. Doesn’t Know If The UFC Will Let Anderson Silva Fight Him

Former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva hasn’t spent much time out of the headlines since he captured the title from Rich Franklin at UFC 64 in 2006, but the media sh*t storm surrounding his UFC 162 loss to Chris Weidman was like no other. ‘The Spider’ was KO’d for the first time in his 39-fight career, lost his first UFC title fight and first UFC fight, and ended a number of record-breaking streaks within the promotion.

The talk then turned to Silva’s future, and more specifically a boxing match against Roy Jones Jr. Both Silva and the boxing great had expressed their interest in fighting each other, then ‘The Spider’ sustained a terrible injury during his UFC 168 rematch against ‘The All-American’ and all talks got put on the backburner.

The fourteen-time, four-weight world champion boxing legend spoke during an M-1 event in Russia this week, and he thinks that the UFC’s indecisiveness hasn’t helped with his plans on fighting Silva. Mixedmartialarts.com had the quotes:

“Well, as an actual plan, it was an actual plan,” said a jet lagged Jones. “The UFC, which is like M-1, they’re having second thoughts, they’re not really making up their mind, whether they want to let him, or not let him. He wants to, because he wants to box. I want to. It’s just a matter of the organization giving him the freedom to do it.”

Jones’ comments imply that even the UFC’s biggest assets are not safe from the product management team’s iron fist (or something), as Silva could be added to a long line of MMA legends that are seemingly collared and caged by the organization. Many ex-UFC fighters have complained of harsh treatment by their former employers, but I always hoped that boxing or kickboxing could still be an option for current athletes.

IF what Jones Jr says is true, does the UFC really have the rights to subject one of it’s founding stars to such copyrighting? You could argue that Silva put his pen to the contract paper, but boxing is a completely different sport. Wouldn’t it also give a good jumping off point for boxing fans that aren’t familiar with MMA? Whatever the weather, I think a fight between Jones and Silva would be great to watch.