Roy Jones Jnr is the latest former fighter to voice his concern over the future of Conor Benn if he perseveres at world class. Yet the legendary Jones, who has trained Benn’s rival Chris Eubank Jnr in the past, believes the Briton can still bank further millions if he treads a different path.
Benn was stopped in two rounds by Ryan Garcia in Las Vegas last weekend. Largely one-way traffic from the start, Benn was unable to avoid the educated raids of the WBC welterweight champion and, after a heavy fall from a right hand, he was rescued with his back to the ropes in the second round.
Zuffa Boxing’s Benn is yet to decide on his future, but it seems unlikely, with him being just 29 and his value still likely substantial at the box office, he would consider walking away.
Jones has urged Zuffa Boxing’s Benn – who is currently 1-1 with Eubank Jnr at middleweight – to plot his route carefully.
“He’s not gonna be a world champion, no,” Jones told Parimatch Slots Site.
“But he’s gonna make a lot of money for what he’s doing. A lot of guys will wish they had that same fate. He’s fortunate enough to have a situation where he can fight two more top-level fights. If I were him, I would just come back and run the Chris Eubank trilogy, for one. Then I’d get one more fight, and I’d be through with it.
“For him, make the money and be gone. That’s the best thing.”
If Eubank is one of two fights for Benn, who is the other?
“A Conor McGregor fight would be a lot more in Conor Benn’s lane,” said Jones, who won belts at middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight.
“I think if I had my dream wish for Conor Benn, it would be to fight Conor McGregor, and then to finish off with Chris Eubank and call it a day. That’s two big-time multimillion-dollar fights. Zuffa makes their money back that they put into him, and we call it a day.
“Conor Benn is gonna face two more brutal assaults unless he fights Eubank and somebody else like Conor McGregor. But if he doesn’t, he’s gonna face two more brutal assaults, because he’s gotta fight names for them to make the money that they paid him. Benn vs. McGregor is a really interesting fight. Depends on who trains them both, but it’d be a really interesting fight.”
Jones, who admitted he would work with Benn if approached, identified where it all went wrong against Garcia.
“It looked like whoever trained Benn didn’t do the homework,” he said.
“Everybody knows Ryan has an awesome left hook. If Ryan hits you with the left hook, it’s gonna be a short night for you, as we saw. So, I thought Benn would come out and avoid the left hook, make it difficult for him to land the left hook right away. But when I saw him get hit with it three times in a row, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is over already.’ I just felt like they didn’t prepare him right, because he wasn’t prepared to deal with the left hook.
“The second mistake could have been that they spent more time making weight than getting ready for the fight. Sometimes that happens, and that will take away everything from you. When your camp is focused on making weight instead of fighting, it’s a different camp. It’s a whole different style of camp, a whole different type of camp. You don’t get to work on blocking the left hook and doing things like that, because your biggest accomplishment in training camp is making weight. That’s what it can look like.”