Floyd Mayweather and Mike Tyson unexpectedly announced an exhibition bout for Spring 2026, and Roy Jones Jr has weighed in on the event.
59-year-old Tyson was last in action in November 2024 against Jake Paul, losing a unanimous decision in an underwhelming eight-rounder. Mayweather, 48, has been on the exhibition circuit for some time now since his retirement in 2017, last facing John Gotti III in August last year.
Speaking to TalkSPORT, Jones assessed the announcement from the point of view of a man who was himself calling for a fight against Mayweather, complimenting both men for making it happen but calling the timing ‘funny.’
“I’m gonna keep it 100 with you, I’m the type of guy I don’t hate on nobody. And I don’t want to hate on nobody. If they’re gonna do it, make it something big for the public to see and make money doing it, my hat goes off to them. More power to them.”
“You should never hate on anybody making money in this sport cause that’s what this sport is for. It’s funny that they would announce it the week of all the chaos I’ve got going on, and the week before the Canelo fight. Somebody told me that there was gonna be a big announcement coming around the Canelo fight, and there it is. That somebody was correct.”
Mayweather and Jones had engaged in an online back and forth stemming from the latter predicting Floyd would be beaten by Sugar Ray Leonard. Mayweather responded by filming himself watching Jones being knocked out by a number of opponents, prompting Jones to call for a fight to settle it.
As for the action, the four-weight world champion told fans not to write off Tyson – though how competitive in nature the event will be remains to be seen.
“You can sit here and pick it apart, say Mike didn’t look good against Jake and stuff like that. It’s not that. Maybe he had a bad night. We’ll see what happens this time.”
