Hi, I’m Anderson Silva’s ego!

March 11, 2008 – 4:49 pm by fightlinker

Considering it’s all everyone has been talking about lately, it’s no surprise that Anderson Silva and his camp also realize there’s not a hell of a lot left for him to do inside the Octagon at the moment. What is surprising though is what Silva and his camp are talking about doing to keep things interesting:

“Anderson really would love to fight Roy Jones, Jr. in a boxing match,” says his manager, Ed Soares, confirming recent speculation. “It’s not just talk, we really would like to put that fight together.”

“We respect Jones’ boxing ability and think he’s one of the best,” said Soares, “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.”

Now if you’re not a big boxing fan, you might not know who Roy Jones Jr is. Here’s a nice little writeup from CagePotato that sums his accomplishments up nicely:

Once considered the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, Jones (now 39 years old) has won championship belts as a middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight, and once held seven different light heavyweight (169-175 pounds) titles at the same time. Besides a disqualification loss to Montell Griffin in 1997, Jones went undefeated in his first 50 fights before losing three straight in 2004-2005. His last fight was a unanimous decision victory over Felix Trinidad in January.

In short, Jones is a certified badass even though he’s over the hill as far as boxers are concerned. However, being old wouldn’t stop him from pounding the shit out of Anderson Silva.

There’s a reason no boxing star has done more than pay a little lip service to Dana White’s challenge to give MMA a shot: they’d get their asses handed to them. This isn’t some kind of diss toward boxers, because it’d work the same way going the other direction: your average MMA fighter would get trounced in a boxing match. The reason? They’re completely different fucking sports.

To give credit to Anderson Silva, I’m sure he’s been working on his straight boxing skills if his management is gonna sling this kinda shit. But for these guys to think Silva can take on someone like Roy Jones Jr is past outrageous, it borders on the egomaniacle. Unless Anderson Silva has been secretly working his way up the South American boxing circuit wearing a wig and mustache, there’s no way you can look at this as anything other than a disappointing display of hubris from someone we all thought was more modest than that.