By Jim Maltzman: In disappointing news, the right 8-round exhibition match between 50+-year-old Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr is being postponed until November 28 for it to marinate to take place in front of live crowds.
RingTV is reporting that postponement for the Tyson-Jones eight-round exhibition fight, which was supposed to be taking place next month on September 12 on pay-per-view at the Dignity Health Park in Carson, California.
These are the reasons the Tyson vs. Jones Jr exhibition fight is being postponed:
- More time to marinate
- Drug testing by VADA
- Regulations – the fight is supposed to be a glorified sparring match. However, Jones and Tyson are talking like it’s a real fight, not an easy-going spar. Jones is concerned about needing to protect himself against Tyson if he starts swinging for the fences with knockout intentions
- The need to stage the fight in front of a crowd
- Canelo Alvarez potentially fighting on September 12
Can Tyson pass a drug test?
The drug testing could be a significant problem with the fight only one month away in September. What happens if Tyson tests positive for marijuana? That would be not good. For Tyson not to fail the drug test, he would need time to get any marijuana out of his system before taking a test.
It’s unclear if Tyson is still smoking weed. If so, then it’s understandable why they’re postponing the fight. This fight with Jones likely isn’t just a one-off with Tyson. He surely will want to do other matches, but a positive test for marijuana would get in the way of those fights if he comes up dirty.
According to Healthline, heavy weed users can still test positive over 30 days after they last used the drug. As such, if VADA tests Tyson from now until the fight on September 12, there’s a possibility he might test positive for marijuana if he quit using the stuff right now. Of course, if Tyson continued to smoke weed, he’d fail for sure.
It would be interesting to know if drug testing was factored in when the organizers made the Jones vs. Tyson fight. If they knew about it, then you would think they would have told Tyson about it.
Postponing the fight makes sense
It makes a lot of sense for great heavyweight Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) and Jones (66-9, 47 KOs) to postpone the fight because there’s not enough time for them to promote their match before September 12 heavily.
The fight between them was announced on July 23, and that doesn’t give much time to try to market it. Tyson and Jones are already taking a hit with the fight not having a crowd on September 12, but what makes things worse is the absence of groups.
Moving their fight to November 28 increases the chances of crowds before allowed back in, but it doesn’t guarantee that they will. The vaccine for the virus is expected to be available by December or January.
“Sources say that the fight was moved because Tyson’s team felt they could maximize revenue by rescheduling. A meeting was held between both sides recently, and Jones approved of the switch,” said RingTV.
It might not be available by November 28, which means Tyson and Jones may need to move their fight to December or January if they want to fight in front of boxing fans.
Will crowds be allowed back by November 28?
You’ve got to believe that even if the vaccine is available by November 28, tons of people will choose not to take it. Will California allow fans back into boxing events by November? Don’t be surprised if the answer is no.
What we don’t want to see is the Tyson vs. Jones fight being postponed multiple times until it’s a joke, and the fans no longer trust the organizers of the event when they reschedule it repeatedly.
It would be astonishing if crowds are allowed back into boxing events for the remainder of 2020. it’s too risky for any state to allow fans back in until the vaccine is made available to the U.S population, and large numbers of people have had a chance to take it.
You can’t have the vaccine available on November 27 and then crowds being allowed back in on November 28. It’s going to take a long time before the people in the U.S to receive the vaccine in large enough numbers to cause a substantial drop in positive cases.
It would be a mistake on the organizers for the Jones vs. Tyson fight to assume that crowds will be allowed back into boxing events the minute the vaccine comes available. It might take many months before we see the benefits of the vaccine, and who knows long the states will wait before they give the green light to letting fans back in?
Jones worried about Tyson
“Andy Foster can’t control Mike once Mike gets in the ring. I’ve got to defend myself like I’m in a real fight,” Roy Jones Jr. said to Yahoo Sports News. “If Mike goes out there and decides to start hammering, what am I supposed to do, look at Andy?”
This is funny. With Jones’ weak chin, he can’t afford to take it easy on Tyson because even if it’s a light spar, Tyson has the kind of power to knock Jones into oblivion with a single punch. That would be dangerous for Jones to get knocked out cold once again.
The last time Jones was knocked out in 2015 by cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli in Moscow, Russia, it was scary to watch.
Maccarinelli sliced through Jones like he was butter in that fight, and blasted him out in four one-sided rounds. Jones wasn’t remotely competitive even or a second.
If Jones relaxes for even a second against Tyson, he’ll likely go to sleep in this fight. They can call this fight an exhibition, but it’s evident that Tyson and Jones are going to be playing for keeps.