Steve Collins vs Roy jones jr

[ross]

I dont know, there has to be a reason why they never fought, including Benn and Eubank. It cant just be everyone elses fault can it? Even Mike Tyson probably the most feared fighter of the last 30 years had people queuing to fight him for the purse. Same as any feared fighter. They generate money.

Unless its a high risk low reward fighter (Bika) but having Jones scalp would be high reward. I do think I remember he wasnt a really big money fighter back then though. He wasnt put on British tv until 96. I remember the first fight of his on British tv was the Bryant Brannon fight. Maybe there was just not enough money or interest involved for the likes of Benn and Eubank who were relatively big earners.

Jones made his super middle debut against Toney at the end of '94, and was testing the waters at light heavy by January '96
Eubank lost his title to Collins in early 95, then rematched Collins in late '95. Benn wanted easy paydays after McClellan in early '95, and lost his championship a year later.

I think it was as much a case of too small a window to sort these fights out.

Thats pretty much true for Jones after Toney I'd say. When Benn was coming off the fight of his life Jones saw fit to ride a bloated HBO contract and beat up an obvious mis matched Pazienza and Thorton who was coming off an out and out robbery 'w' to a 50-50 Lenzie Morgan.

I do think there was a small window for Jones v Benn after McClellan. I remember reading articles in Ring and elsewhere where Benn called for it ( though saying it might be an uphill battle) and Jones saying basically...maybe later, but not right now.

I cannot get over the irony of Roy clamouring for relevance today by going overseas for paydays while back at the top he would hear nothing of it and literally yell that he wasn't being payed enough to take the risk. I wish he would retire and call fights from ringside.

I remember in 96 (I think) the ring did a special feature on Mike Tyson where he had pictures with his white tigers and they asked him shit like would he fight Eric Esche (butter bean) and Mike basically laughed it off saying he knew him and he was a nice fellow. Then they asked him what he thought of Jones and that jones says there is no one for him to fight and I haven't seen this article since it came out but I remember almost word for word they quoted Mike as saying "that's not true at all, there's Nigel Benn" he even went on to say how he liked Benn as he reminded him of himself and that he'd give Jones a very hard fight. Benn beat McClellan who jones was shit scared to fight and although the McClellan fight took a lot out of Benn it did make him a massive name world wide. He was already known massively in america for going over and doing Barkley inside of a round, who then went on to push toney hard.

Jones was good but he was also flattered by the level of opposition.