Boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. was the surprise opponent choice for returning heavyweight champion Mike Tyson’s first fight in over 15 years, but that doesn’t mean Jones is planning to be a soft touch when the two meet for a pay-per-view boxing match on September 12 in Carson, California. The 51-year-old former pound-for-pound king revealed his way of thinking to Boxing Scene’s Dan Rafael in a story published to the site on Friday.
“Mike comes to that ring and Mike’s coming to kill. When I go in there I’m going in there to kill or die. So you know how it’s gonna go,” Jones said.
Jones went on to promise that fans who purchase the Tyson vs. Jones fight on pay-per-view will “get what they paid for.”
Tyson, 54, is set to face Jones in an eight-round exhibition boxing match on September 12 in Carson, California.
Roy Jones Predicts Stoppage One Way or Another
Jones doesn’t think his fight against Tyson will go the distance.
“If he doesn’t get me out in the first two, three rounds it’s all on my side,” Jones said. “Now he got to survive. I got to survive three. He got to survive five. I think it’s definitely going to come off. Who don’t want to see Mike Tyson against Roy Jones?”
So Jones is actually planning to use in real life what also worked in that old video game “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” from the 1980s. The smaller fighter will attempt to stay away from the larger Tyson for the first few rounds in hopes that his opponent will tire.
Roy Jones Just Couldn’t Turn Down Massive Fight
Jones just couldn’t turn down the chance to fight Tyson.
The fighter revealed to Rafael that he had received various other offers from promoters over the last couple of years since his last professional prizefight, but that the chance to fight Tyson was the only one he couldn’t turn down.
The two negotiated for a bout in 2003, but it never materialized. Now, Jones gets his chance to share the ring with Tyson.
“I’m very amped up,” Jones said. “That’s the only person I really wanted to fight. I would have said no to everybody else. But Mike Tyson? There’s no way you can say no. That’s the only guy I wanted to fight at heavyweight so I couldn’t turn it down. I couldn’t say no.”
Roy Jones Jr. Was Fighter of the Decade for the 1990s
Jones won his first world title in boxing at 160 pounds in 1993 and became the first former middleweight boxing champ in 106 years to move up to win a heavyweight title when he defeated John Ruiz in 2003.
Jones was the Fighter of the Decade for the 1990s according to the Boxing Writers Association of America.
He won multiple world titles in four different weight classes during his stunning run as a prizefighter and appears to be locked into gunning for the stoppage of Tyson when the two men face each other inside a boxing ring in less than two months.
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Boxing Legend Reveals: ‘Mike’s Coming to Kill!’