Look, man. I get it. We’ve all been pressed for cash.
So when a promoter interrupted Roy Jones Jr.’s Zumba class at the senior center and waved a check in his face in exchange for getting punched in that same face by Mike Tyson, Roy probably weighed his options, updated his will and did the Bankhead Bounce to the bank.
But as we previously reported here at The Root, their exhibition bout, originally scheduled for September 12, was postponed to November 28; providing Jones with ample time to rethink his life choices and realize that getting his jaw reconstructed in front of millions of his adoring fans probably isn’t the greatest idea.
CBS Sports reports that after mulling their scheduled bout over, Jones is coming to terms with the fact that he’ll be eating nothing but mashed potatoes and Patti pies for the rest of his life.
“He’s still Mike Tyson, he’s still one of the strongest, most explosive people who ever touched a boxing ring,” Jones said. “If anything, I made a mistake going in with him. He’s the bigger guy, he’s the explosive guy. He’s going to have all the first-round fireworks, not me.”
Pretty much.
“He’s known for more first-round fireworks than anybody to ever touch boxing, other than maybe George Foreman,” Jones continued. “With him having the first-round fireworks, he’ll be against a guy smaller than him, maybe 40-50 pounds smaller than him.”
In August, Iron Mike confirmed his blood lust on The Dan Patrick Show.
“We’re throwing punches at each other. This is going to be my definition of fun,” the former heavyweight champ told Patrick. “Broken eye sockets, broken jaw, broken rib. That’s fun, to me.”
BREAKING NEWS: This isn’t gonna end well for you, Roy, but the streets need this scrap, so you’re gonna have to take this good ol’ fashioned passionate ass-whooping like a champ.
We promise not to laugh when your toes curl up after you hit the canvas.
For his part, California State Athletic Commission exec Andy Foster has tried to downplay the imminent bloodbath and has instead compared the fight to a round of pattycake—or a group hug.
“We can’t mislead the public as to this is some kind of real fight,” he told Boxing Scene. “They can get into it a little bit, but I don’t want people to get hurt. They know the deal.”
Man, fuck that. In the immortal words of Babs from Making the Band, “Let ‘em fight!”
On November 28th it goes down.