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Here’s a great look at where Anderson Silva’s boxing skills are at. Good enough to compete with Roy Jones Jr.?

Courtesy of Esther Lin at AllElbows.com

It appears the rumors of former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski joining the boxing world are indeed true.

Sources close to the situation have confirmed that former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski has indeed signed with Golden Boy Promotions and his next fight will take place inside of a boxing ring.

Arlovski had been training under legendary boxing trainer Freddie Roach for his fight last month against Fedor Emelianenko. In the weeks leading up to the fight, Roach publicly said Andrei would transition to boxing and even challenge for the heavyweight title after he took out Fedor. Obviously, beating Fedor didn’t happen, but it appears Andrei’s going to give the sweet science a shot anyways, although it remains to be seen as to whether Andrei will in fact make a run for the title.

As a fan of MMA, I’m sad to see Arlovski moving on, although it may be what makes the most sense for him at this point in his career. At the very least, we’ll finally get to see how a mixed martial artist fares against a high-level professional boxer in a boxing match.

Best of luck Andrei. We’ll be watching.

Props to Dave Mandel of Sherdog.com for the best DoR pic I’ve seen

Freddie Roach talking to MMA Weekly:

Andrei Arlovski’s camp sure is confident heading into the biggest fight of Andrei’s career. First, Freddie Roach publicly ripped apart Fedor’s boxing technique and proclaimed Andrei would “dominate” him standing up if only Fedor would “fight like a man.” Now, as you’ll see at the 2:15 mark, Arlovski’s manager, Billy Keene, staying with the boxing theme, likens Fedor’s mystique to that of Mike Tyson’s. And guess who Arlovski is? Yep, “the Buster Douglas of mixed martial arts.” At this point, it would only make sense for Fedor to immediately get this fight to the ground, but if we look back to Fedor’s biggest fights, he likes to beat his opponents at their own game. Will he do that here? I don’t know, but honestly, after listening to all this, I would love to see Fedor show Roach and co. just how “poor” his technique is.

It’s undoubtedly a huge fight in the heavyweight division, but will anyone be there live to witness it? Well, if the rumors are true, maybe so, but most probably won’t have paid a dime to get in. The event’s just two weeks out, and word on the street is ticket sales aren’t doing quite as well as Affliction would like you to believe. 4,000? Nope. 3,000? Wrong again. 2,000? Getting warmer. How about 1,500? Bingo. 1,400 – 1,500 tickets sold is the number making the rounds now, and Affliction will neither confirm or deny its accuracy. Hmm…wonder why not?

Speaking of promotions not doing well, Pro Elite still hasn’t closed on a deal yet, despite reports last month that they had accepted someone’s bid. Apparently, potential buyers keep backing out at the last minute after realizing what everyone else already knows—Pro Elite is a bad investment. And yes, that means the fighters are still getting the shaft.

I don’t know if this is real or a photoshop, but pretty funny nonetheless. Pro MMA has a gallery of a bunch of sweet Fedor pics you’ve probably never seen.

Speaking of Fedor, you know all the comments Dana White’s recently been making about him not being the best heavyweight in the world and how everybody does what he did to Tim Sylvia? Well, Fedor’s respectful, yet “Oh Snap!” response in 3…2…1.

I think if Dana White says something negative about his [former] champions then he is only saying something negative about his own organization. I have victories over many of the UFC’s champions. If he says something bad about them or me then he only makes his organization look weak.

[...]

(Laughs) I think if I fought for the UFC, he would try to sell me as the greatest MMA fighter that ever lived.

Dana wasn’t the only person with negative things to say about Fedor recently. Andrei Arlovski’s legendary boxing trainer, Freddie Roach, picked apart Fedor’s boxing technique. Here’s what Fedor had to say about that.

The beauty about MMA is that every fighter has his own unique style and preferences. But it’s not a beauty contest. We fight to see which fighter’s approach prevails. But again, we are not boxing and we are not fighting Sambo. We fight MMA.

Sometimes it is a trainer’s job to point out weaknesses in his fighter’s opponents. And sometimes it is a trainer’s job to convince his fighter that his opponent has weaknesses. We will see.

We certainly will…

“As far as his stand up game, we’ll kill him. If we can keep the fight standing up, if he chooses to fight us like a man, we’ll dominate him.”