Benn making it CLEAR he wanted Jones Jr

You could be right, but I am 80% sure the first name out of Roy's mouth was Nigel Benn.

 

Benn would've only been fighting Jones for the money at that stage, he knew he wasn't the same fighter after the Mclellan fight . He said " i dont mind being number 2 to RJJ"

 

You could be right as well its been about 2 years since Ive seen that vid, Hbo made the user take it down

Another vid, make of it what you will:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAP2JdvnDkY[/ame]

 

Dude this is completely wrong. Jones biggest payday at the point in time was for his fight Toney, he got around 2M. Benns biggest purse was the 1M he got against Eubank II, how on earth is a total purse bid of 50m going to be generated from these two fighters? Benn was heavily in debt with the Tax man going into the McClellan fight and most of his purse went to pay of his debt. So I dont know what you are talking about, about how Benn had that kind of money in his account.

 

Ive got to disagree with some of those figures. He was offered around 500k to fight Nunn (his mandatory) and was offered around 750K to fight McClellan. Which is why he took that fight. He was in debt to the IRS and he said himself that most of the money went to them. "If I dont win this fight I'm broke", is what Benn said to his manager Peter Defrietas. He aslo said that his biggest purse was the 1m he got against Eubank II. It was a massive fight, both were stars, around an attendence of 44K people and watched ny 18.5M in Britain. How on earth was he going to make more money fighting Wharton who was at best a journeyman. He has also said that his total fight purses throughout his career was around 10M and after tax he took home around 6M

My sources for this are Benns Autobiography and War Baby by Kevin Mitchell.

Where on earth would King get that sort of money from? The highest ppv that Jones had at that point was for the 300k he did against Toney. Where Jones made around 2M. The only guys who generate that kind of purse are superstars like Oscar, Tito and Tyson. Jones said that King offered a total purse of 25M but he couldnt accept it because King wanted options on his next three fights. He said that he would be prepared to fight Benn if King dropped his options clause and was willing to accept 10M. Even these figure is way to high, they would be lucky to get a purse of 10M to split between them

My source for this is The Dark Trade by Donald McRae.

 

Finally some truth!!!!

I had heard that Don King had something to do with not making this fight happen, this explains it.

I don't think Jones ducked Benn, and I don't think Benn ducked Jones... Most people automatically blame Jones for not fighting. The video you posted above also helps prove the fact that there was a time when Roy Jones was a ducked fighter.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/jones-only-has-eyes-for-benn-1323327.html

Also the fact that Jones was tied to HBO and Benn was tied to Showtime made it a problem, King wanted the fight on Showtime. Liles vs Jones was similar in the sense that Liles was a King fighter and on Showtime

This content is protected

 

Someof these posts go to show that it's not always simply a matter of one fighter "ducking" another. Benn and Jones, I believe, would of fought one another only for contractual obligations. It's a poor reflection on boxing that a fight of this magnitude can be hindered by pure greed.

Imo, Jones would of beaten Benn to a pulp withing 5-6. But you could never count out Benn's power, especially with the uncertainty surrounding Jones' chin.

 

Benn has said in his own Autobiography that he got paid 750K. Kevin Mitchell confirms that in his book about the fight.

Dude, where are you getting this figure from? Jones PPvs had dropped since his fight with Toney and were around 230K. Theres is no way that kind of purse was possible. When Jones fought Ruiz he was paid 10M and that was the highest PPV buyrate he ever had which was 500K. Benn vs Jones would of done much less than 500K, so how could the avalible purse be much higher? In the book War baby, Benns manager Peter Defreitas said that Benn was hoping to get 6M for a fight with Jones.

 

You believe Don King? lol

Oscar vs Tito did 1.4M ppvs, the total purse was 25m, with 15m going to Oscar and 10M going to Tito. Benn vs Jones would of done at most around 350K

Don King at his best:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1138633/index.htm

 

My books are at home so I cant tell you now, but the next I'm in an internet cafe I'll type up a quote from both books and their page numbers