Roy Jones Jr is upset about the WBC and California Commission making changes to his 8-round exhibition match against Mike Tyson on November 28th by changing it from three-minute to two-minute rounds.
Jones, 51, feels that the change from three minutes to two favors former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs), who have a greater chance of gassing in a three-minute round.
The former four-division world champion Jones (66-9, 47 KOs) is angry about the change, and he says it’s unleashed his alter-ego ‘RJ,’ which a part of his mind that he’s trying to suppress. He says that if he was to let his ‘RJ’ out, he might end up in a prison.
Jones states the Commission and WBC are making the changes as part of safety measures following the recent exhibition match between Julio Cesar Chavez Sr and Jorge Arce. The 58-year-old Chavez and 41-year-old Arce were both exhausted in fighting three-minute rounds.
Jones will be battling Tyson on November 28t in a pay-per-view exhibition at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. If the fight goes well, Jones would be interested in running it back in a rematch in a real professional fight of 12 rounds.
Is Tyson healthy?
Mike Tyson gave a weird interview this week on ‘Good Morning Britain’ in which he sounded like he wasn’t all there. Hopefully, he’s not having health problems going into next months’ fight with Roy Jones.
Roy worried about being elbowed by Mike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPg-CRM__o
“It really depends on how it goes,” said Roy Jones Jr to the Joe Rogan Experience when asked if he’ll fight Tyson more than once. “I think Mike is an awesome person, and he’s had his ups and downs.
“He is Mike. You don’t know what Mike you’re going to get. In an exhibition, you’ve got to prepare the best you can. Anything can happen. Mike can hit you with an elbow and cut you on purpose.
“Anything can happen and you don’t know. And you try and get him back, and they may stop you before you get him back. Then they say, ‘Do you want to do a real fight?’ Hell, yeah, I want to do a real fight with my get back.
“If this time is good, then I’m glad and everything will be great. We both may put on great performances and we may call it a day. We might be too tired to talk about it afterward.
“But it will probably depend on the outcome of this. When you’re a smaller guy, you’ve got to prepare yourself for whatever because you don’t know what he may come in there and do. I feel safe with these earmuffs on because he may bite you on your damn ear.
“You don’t know what he might do. They call it an exhibition. He is shredded. He’s doing the right thing. If everything goes good, then I want to do it twice. If they say, ‘You want to do it for real,’ then give me some 10’s and we’ll go for real,” said Jones.
Getting elbowed is the least that Jones has to worry about against ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson. He should be more worried about getting hit with some of his big power shots. Tyson never had a reputation for elbowing his opponents.
He was more into hurting them with his fists and getting them out of there quickly through powerful combination punching.
Jones talks about the fight rules being changed
“I want 12 [rounds]. They got me doing eight two-minute rounds now,” said Jones Jr. Everything is to his [Tyson] advantage.
“That’s to his advantage too. At this point, the fans are so excited about t. I wouldn’t want to pull the rug out from the fans,” said Jones when asked why he agreed to the rounds being two minutes.
“I’ll do these two-minute rounds, but I might work a little bit faster than I wanted to. It’s a totally different kind of rhythm [fighting two-minute rounds]. They just decided this last week.
“They change things up on me by the week. I thought but I guess I read the memo wrong,” Jones said when asked if the fight was originally three-minute rounds.
“I think the WBC came in and said they want to put up some kind of title. So want to put it at two-minute rounds. They said something about [Jorge] Arce and [Julio] Cesar Chavez Sr, how fatigued they were after their [exhibition] fight, and they feel that’s a safety measure.
“What they don’t realize is that if you keep Mike fresh, it’s more dangerous for me. I need to get Mike unfresh quick so I get out of this danger zone.
“He [Chavez Sr] and Arce fought a true exhibition with headgear and big gloves, but they say they were so exhausted afterward that they felt that is what could inhibit someone’s health.
“I don’t know why they cut it back [to two-minute rounds]. What I’m telling them, ‘No, that’s not right for me because I’m the smaller guy. Time is the best component I have.’ The longer he goes the more he wears the better chances for me.
“The more you keep him strong and fresh, the more dangerous it is for me. The [California] Commission said they’re dropping it down to two-minute rounds. They said you could pull out, or you can fight,” said Roy Jr.
With the way Tyson is looking in his workouts, it won’t matter that the rounds aren’t three minutes. He’s likely to end the fight in the first two minutes of the first round.
If Roy’s punch resistance at an all-time high, it wouldn’t be as big of a problem for him. But since 2004, Jones’ lost his ability to take a hard shot.
Jones talks about unleashing ‘RJ’
“They said the WBC came in and said it along with the Commission,” Jones Jr said. “The Commission told me it’s the WBC, and the WBC told me it’s the Commission. So I’m not sure. My point is, that’s not good for me.
“That’s good for him. He’s already the bigger man. They’re giving him everything he wants. I wanted it to be three-minute rounds because it’s safer for me. What they’re doing is turning that light back on.
“I didn’t want to turn the light back on. But I didn’t want to be this person but you want to do me like this, you started something.
“That means trouble. I was cool in the beginning, but you can only kick me around so much, then the Hulk comes out. Look at my skin. I’m turning green. They’re starting to wake him up.
“The one they don’t want to F with,” Jones said when asked who is his alter ego, ‘RJ.’ I’ve known it my whole life, but I’ve always tried to suppress that person because that person will wind up in a penitentiary somewhere if you don’t watch it.
“He ain’t thinking about or carrying about what someone thinks. It’s never been pushed to that measure, which is why I say, society has tried to make us gildings.
“I try to keep it [RJ] suppressed, but you only kick on me so much and then he’s coming. Once he starts coming, he’s like a pit bull and he has no off switch,” said a testy-sounding Jones Jr.
It would be a good idea for Jones to unleash the ‘RJ’ because this is a fight that he seriously needs it. With that said, why didn’t Jones use his ‘RJ’ alter ego in the many fights he was knocked out since 2004?