Anderson Silva will not fight Roy Jones Jr in UFC

UFC president Dana White insists there will not be a fight between Anderson Silva and Roy Jones Jr while the Brazilian is under contract with the organization.

Jones Jr’s manager McGee Wright told CBS.com earlier this week that his client wanted to fight Anderson Silva in the Octagon under UFC rules.

Silva expressed an interest in fighting Jones Jr under professional boxing rules some time ago.

“You won’t see a Silva versus Jones fight while Silva is under contract with me,” White told CBS.com. “I don’t want to say anything bad about Roy Jones, I like Roy Jones and was a fan of his, but he mattered like fifteen years ago. He’s not anywhere near the best boxer in the world. He must’ve spent all his money.”

He added: “We could do it, make it huge, make money, but I could have done a fight like this when we were bleeding money [in the early 2000s]… the fight would make some money, but it hurts MMA in the long term. We don’t do that because we love the sport. That’s a Pride or K-1 matchup. It’s not what we do.”

“I would’ve thought Dana would’ve been happy to do it, after all last year he said he wanted Sean Sherk to fight Floyd Mayweather, The pay per view of Jones against Silva would be in line with the results from the [May 2008] De La Hoya/Floyd Mayweather fight,” said McGee Wright.

Tags: Anderson Silva, Dana White, Sean Sherk, UFC