Dana White: Roy Jones Coming To Vegas For Silva's Fight

By Edward Chaykovsky

BoxingScene.com reported earlier that UFC champion Anderson Silva (33-4 in MMA, 16-0 in the UFC), 38-years-old, was still pushing for a dream fight with 44-year-old former four division champion Roy Jones Jr. (56-8, 40KOs).

Silva has been asking for this fight for several years. During a recent interview, he said the fight was more important to him than an MMA super fight with either Georges St. Pierre and Jon Jones.

"Of course I want to fight him, and maybe after this fight against [Chris] Weidman, regardless of the outcome, I would love to fight him. He's already said he'd fight me, so that's something I'd really like to happen," Silva said to MMA Junkie.

"I feel that his boxing style is one that I'd like to test myself against. I've always been a fan of his, and I've always wanted to test myself against Roy Jones."

Silva returns this Saturday as the main event of UFC 162 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He faces undefeated Chris Weidman (9-0) and many experts are tabbing the challenger to pull off the upset.

UFC President Dana White has been critical in the past of a Silva-Jones encounter, but now he appears to be more open to the idea of making it happen.

White reached out to Jones and spoke to him about Silva's desire to fight. Jones is very interested and plans to fly out to Las Vegas to sit cageside as Silva defends his title.

"It's not that I'm necessarily interested in this, Anderson Silva's the greatest fighter of all time, you know, he's a guy who's never lost in the UFC, I respect him -- he wants to fight Roy Jones. So Roy and I are friends. I called Roy and I said, ‘Listen, you know about this?' He says, ‘I know about it.' I say, ‘You interested?' He says, ‘I'm going to come out to Vegas this weekend.' So Roy and I have been talking and we'll see what happens. I don't know [if the fight will happen]. I don't know. He's coming out and we're going to talk," White said to MMA Fighting.