Seth Petruzelli, Bobby Lashley, and other mixed martial artists are scheduled to fight on the undercard of Roy Jones' next bout against Omar Sheika. AOL Fanhouse has the details:
Combining boxing and MMA has been tried before, although never in a card featuring a fighter as well known as Jones. And although neither Petruzelli nor Lashley is anywhere close to being a great MMA fighter, they're both well known: Petruzelli beat Kimbo Slice on national television in October, while Lashley was once among the most popular pro wrestlers in the WWE. Another MMA fight on the card is supposed to match Roy Nelson against Jeff Monson, although Monson's legal problems could make that difficult.
The card will take place at the Pensacola Civic Center and be shown on pay-per-view, but will anyone buy it? I have a hard time seeing this selling very well. Jones was once the best boxer in the world, but that was a long time ago. He's 40 years old now, and he got destroyed in his last fight, a unanimous decision loss to Joe Calzaghe. How many people want to spend $50 to watch an over-the-hill Jones against an opponent only the most hard-core of boxing fans have ever heard of?
I can't imagine this event being all that successful as a pay-per-view, given the current lineup. Expecting people to spend $40 to $50 $35.95 on this affair could be a tad ambitious. The event is being promoted by Roy Jones Jr. himself. I suppose he sees the growing popularity of MMA as a way to bolster his audience. It makes sense, but a lot of groundwork goes into making an MMA pay-per-view successful. There's also a little friction between many followers of the two combat sports. Can a hybrid event of this nature be a popular hit? That's an open question. I guess we can look at the March offering as an experiment of sorts.
