By Mark Vester
According to New Zealand's Sunday News, David Tua was in serious negotiations to fight Roy Jones Jr. in 2003, when Jones won the WBA heavyweight title from John Ruiz. The fight talks was broken off when Tua became engaged in his ongoing legal war with his former management team of Kevin Barry and Martin Pugh. The case is still going in a New Zealand high court with appearances set for October 19 and 20.
It's hard to say if Jones was really serious about the fight. After he won the title from Ruiz, he tried to approach a few different fighters. There was talk back then about Jones going after Hasim Rahman and that never happened. There was talk of Jones facing Evander Holyfield and that didn't happen when Holyfield turned down the fight. Evander would later say Jones didn't show him enough respect and tried to treat him like "an opponent."
Jones probably felt confident enough to go after Tua back then after watching Chris Byrd, a fighter often compared to Jones, outbox Tua with few issues back in 2001.
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