Former four division world champion Roy Jones Jr. (65-9, 47 KOs) is still chasing his dream fight - a cross sports boxing match with UFC legend Anderson Silva.
Jones and Silva have been entertaining a showdown for several years, but the fight has never come close to coming off with Silva suffering injuries, defeats and suspensions due to failed drug tests.
Besides all of those issues, UFC President Dana White has been very resistant to a Jones vs. Silva boxing match.
Jones and Silva are looking to gain from some of the success from the August pay-per-view showdown between Floyd Mayweather and UFC superstar Conor McGregor - which brought in 4 million pay-per-view buys.
Jones, who last fought in February with a one-sided TKO win over Bobby Gunn, is ready to fight Silva at any time.
“I’m still trying to fight Anderson Silva right now. Me and Anderson Silva have been trying to fight way before Floyd Mayweather and McGregor ever thought about this. We’ve been trying to fight for nine years now, and they would not let him get free to fight me. . . Me and him could have did this a long time ago, and we were at the pinnacle of our careers when we first started talking about it so why they still won’t let us fight right now, I don’t know,” Jones told the ‘Ask Gary Vee Show.’
“Both of us want to fight right now still and the UFC won’t let him free to fight. I’m 48, going on 49 in January, and because of how big it is, and how big of an event it is, and I know what it means to him, I’m still willing to fight Anderson Silva tomorrow if he was free to do it.”
At the moment, Silva is once again facing a long suspension after coming up positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Jones could care less about PEDs, too.
“I don’t care about no PEDs,” Jones said. “He can have all the PEDs he wants because that’s my man. I don’t believe he’d take PEDs against me, no way, but even if he had a PED show up in his system, I don’t care about that.”
Silva took to social media to make it clear that he's also very interested in facing Jones.
“Ok Roy Jr this is everything I’ve wanted for years, long before all this happened, it will be a pleasure to step into the ring with you,” Silva stated. “I have great respect and admiration for everything you’ve done in boxing and everyone knows that this has always been my great dream. Let’s make this event happen. I think we have this right, in fact this is something that both You and I are willing to do. So. Let’s make it happen, Mr. Roy.”