Boxing Hall of Famer Roy Jones Jr sat down with Hard Rock Bet News and reacted to Ryan Garcia’s stunning victory over Mario Barrios to become WBC world champion and revealed who ‘King Ry’ should fight next.
The American, who won world titles in four divisions including heavyweight, also previewed Tyson Fury’s upcoming showdown against Arslanbek Makhmudov as well as the chances of him becoming a three time world champion and why Anthony Joshua should be his next fight.
Jones Jr, who fought Mike Tyson in an exhibition in 2020, also analyzed the upcoming rematch between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
Ryan Garcia won the WBC welterweight title, what did you make of his win over Mario Barrios and who should he fight next?
It was a great performance and a great win. Ryan Garcia should fight whoever he wants to fight next because you see what Ryan did, he is really smart. He took and incorporated the Jake Paul approach, and he executed the method and made his career better.
Ryan doesn’t need anybody right now, he can do his own thing because he has such a big social media following and presence and plus, he can actually box. He lost to Gervonta Davis, but people still want to see him, just like they want to see Gervonta Davis, because of social media.
So, he’s the one, I think, that took advantage of what Jake Paul has shown — showing what’s possible with social media and took advantage of it. He’s damn near as big as everybody out there right now. He said he wants Shakur Stevenson — everybody in boxing wants to see him so if he wants to fight Shakur then he gets that fight.
Ryan has already beaten Devin Haney so why would he fight him again? Go for the Shakur fight. People have got the game mixed up. You don’t fight a person you beat two years ago if you want to be the best or a person who may have struggled against you and is now on the way back up right now.
He’s not considered as one of the best right now. You look to fight the best right now. Shakur is considered the best right now. If you want to be the best, you go take on the guy who is the best. You take on the best, then if you want to go back and find the guy who also wants to prove he’s the best, then you fight him. Shakur is the best because he hasn’t lost yet, and it’d be a great fight.
Where does Ryan Garcia rank in the P4P rankings?
He’s in the top five right now because of all the things I have said. He took the method of Jake Paul and his social media presence and has a huge following. He is also the world champion and recently produced a great performance.
Will Tyson Fury win his comeback fight and can he become world champion again?
He can win that fight against Makhmudov and then after, if Oleksandr Usyk is the world champion then it will be very tough to become world champion again but if it is against another world champion then it can happen.
But if Tyson wins that fight, then I’ll be honest. Myself and the whole of the UK want to see Tyson Fury fight Anthony Joshua. How many years have we been waiting for this fight to happen? If we don’t get it at this point, we may never get it. It never happened but the whole public wants to see this fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
What we don’t need is, Tyson winning on his comeback fight and then losing or Anthony Joshua coming back and choosing to fight somebody else and then losing because then the chances of the fight happening is low. Who would want to see it if either of them are defeated again? If we don’t get this fight next, then we may never get it.
I like both of them and it is hard to pick who wins the fight, but it will depend on who is in the better head space ahead of the fight and whoever trains and prepares the best will win but myself and the whole of the UK deserves to see a real fight.
What have you made of John Fury speaking about his relationship with Tyson Fury being non-existent due to boxing?
It was the same with my father; he didn’t want me to fight. Maybe he is right (about wanting Tyson to retire) or maybe he is wrong, but Tyson has to make his own decision as to whether he wants to fight. But my father was the same with me. He cares a lot about his son.
Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao 2, what do you make of the fight and who wins?
They’ll both make a lot of money from it so good luck to both of them. I don’t know how the fight goes but I don’t really care. The fight was five years too late the first time.
Was there ever a bit of friction between you two in the past?
Yes there was because if you say anything negative or derogatory towards me then I am going to speak my mind.
Would you fight Floyd or Mike Tyson in a rematch?
No. I don’t want to turn boxing into a joke, I would never want to do that. If Netflix reached out to me and said they wanted me to fight again and they offered me a lot of money and it made sense for me to come back then I would.
But I won’t come back and fight again in boxing. It would take a lot of money for me to get back into shape so I don’t see it happening.
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