03/12/08



By Justin Bolduc

The "Spider" Silva vs. Jones "Junior"

Recently it has come to light that UFC middleweight champion, Anderson Silva is interested in boxing one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the game, Roy Jones Jr.

Silva has looked unstoppable since joining the UFC in 2006. In his UFC debut he demolished Chris Leben with accurate strikes in less than one minute. His next bout was a sub-three-minute destruction of Rich Franklin to claim the UFC championship.

Silva then fought the winner of The Ultimate Fighter 4, Travis Lutter. What was supposed to be a title bout was changed to a regular affair when Lutter failed to make the 185-pound limit. In one of only two UFC bouts where he lost a round, Lutter controlled the action until round two, when Silva caught him with an upkick, followed by a triangle choke and elbows.

His first real title defense was another exciting finish when he stopped Nate Marquardt with ground and pound in the first round. He followed up with another one-sided defeat of Rich Franklin, and more recently choked out PRIDE champion Dan Henderson (Henderson being the only other fighter in the UFC to win a round over Silva).

Silva’s record is full of impressive wins and finishes. He is the proud owner of one of the most exciting knockouts in MMA – stopping Tony Fryklund with an elbow strike. He has defeated Jeremy Horn and Hayato “Mach” Sakurai, TKO’d Muay Thai practitioner Jorge Rivera, and stopped former UFC welterweight champion Carlos Newton within the first round.

Roy Jones Jr. was named “Fighter of the Decade” for the 1990’s by the Boxing Writers Association of America, and has captured IBF titles at light heavyweight, super middleweight, and middleweight. Additionally, he claimed the WBA heavyweight title in his only career heavyweight bout. He is also known for holding light heavyweight championships in the WBC, IBF, WBA, IBO, WBF, and NBA simultaneously. He holds wins over Felix Trinidad, Antonio Tarver, and Bernard Hopkins.

Anderson Silva’s manager commented to MMAFightline “We respect Jones' boxing ability and think he's one of the best, but we're tired of different boxers saying that MMA fighters aren't technical. Anderson would love to fight Roy Jones in a boxing match under boxing rules to prove that MMA fighters are technical, too.” While it is true that several fighters, such as Floyd Mayweather Jr., have made similar comments, Jones actually respects mixed martial artists.