Comments on: Anderson Silva announces intentions to box Roy Jones Jr. once UFC contract expires

By: MMA-LOGIC

MMA-LOGIC — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:42:37 +0000

5 fights, thats 2 years! a lot of stuff happens in MMA in 2 years. Think of all the Randy and Dana stuff and Fedor coming to the UFC stuff and Kimbo and his pro wrestling debut against Bo Cantrell. This all happened over the last 2 years, Kalib Starnes was still liked 2 years ago. So much water has passed under the bridge that it is hardly worth thinking 2 years ahead. Anything could happen, Fedor may be UFC champ, Henderson may beat Silva, BJ Penn could train hard, anything could happen.

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By: Aussie_MMA

Aussie_MMA — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:36:45 +0000

It’s these stubborn tactics of not allowing UFC fighters to compete in other sports is the reason dana white cant sign Fedor Emeileanko all fedor wants is 4 months a year to train and compete in the Russian Sambo Championship it has never been an issue of money. i’m sure if the ufc allowed silva to compete in this boxing match while still under contract they may just be able to keep the best P4P fighter in the world

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By: Jak

Jak — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:41:29 +0000

Still a wayyyys away, wonder if Jones will still be active once Silva has fought another 5 fights…

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By: TDotted

TDotted — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:33:19 +0000

Stan is right about Silva being able to make a lot more in one boxing match then a MMA match, even versus an old well past his prime Roy Jones. Which is a little sad. 5 fights is a lot though, so it will be interesting to see if everyone is still interested in Silva/Jones Jr or even Silva in MMA at that point.

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By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:18:59 +0000

Silva has 5 fights left on his contract, as far as I know. I remember hearing “6″ before the Cote fight. That would put this matchup somewhere at the end of 2010 if Silva keeps up a decent pace and doesn’t have any injury layoffs.

I remember reading that Silva was categorically unimpressive working out at Freddy Roach’s Gym a few months back. I imagine his Muay Thai striking isn’t going to translate very well to traditional boxing and he’d get trounced by even the shadow of Roy Jones that fought this weekend. Still, Silva’s name is going to have more recognition than just about anyone else that Jones could take on at this point in his career. If the pay per view numbers are solid, Silva could have a bigger payday than his last 5 years of MMA combined.

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By: madiq

madiq — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:30:47 +0000

I think the difference between the Randy Couture scenario and the presumed Anderson Silva scenario is that while Randy refused to accept fights when offered to him, Anderson Silva could plausibly be ready, willing, and able to take the fights necessary to close out his deal, and just quietly relinquish the belt. Or he could threaten to retire from MMA, and have UFC be forced to argue that boxing is equivalent to mixed martial arts, for the purposes of establishing a breach of the promotional agreement. But presumably, that risks a judge invalidating the Champion’s Clause as an unconscionable restraint on all fighters, not simply one changing from MMA to boxing. Randy wanted to get out of his UFC deal in order to fight MMA for a competing promotion, but probably could have done it if he wanted to compete in Combat Sambo.

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By: Ft. Dub

Ft. Dub — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:11:34 +0000

How many fights does Silva have left on his UFC contract? And haven’t we seen before that the UFC will just delay his last fight if he doesn’t re-up. Seems like this wasn’t a very smart fight for Silva to give right now.

I don’t approve of the UFC’s contact antics but they at least seem consistent. They don’t want to have a sitting champion leave and protect against that scenario at all costs. As much as Dana has hyped the Spider as the P4P best, he would hate to lose him to a boxing match with a journeyman ex-champ.

Maybe this is a negotiation tactic for Spider?

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