Roy Jones Jr vs Anthony Pettis headlines Gamebred Boxing 4 on April 1st

When he’s not allegedly sucker-punching people who’d just dominated him in the cage, UFC veteran Jorge Masvidal is a fairly prolific fight promoter, from his iKON Fighting Championships MMA series to his self-titled Gamebred Boxing shows. The latest installment of the latter is set to be...interesting, as he revealed on The MMA Hour that Roy Jones Jr would box former WEC and UFC titlist Anthony Pettis in the main event.

Before you ask, it’s an eight-round pro bout.

Assuming we’re not getting April Fool’d, as others have postulated, this feels like a Mad Libs matchup. Pettis did his best work at 155 pounds and has always been known far more for his kicks than his boxing. Jones (66-9, 47 KO) may be 54 and shot to pieces, but I still don’t think it justifies putting this fight together.

For the sake of brevity, we’ll go through the other announced bouts one-by-one. All are six-rounders between former MMA fighters.

• Jeremy Stephens vs Jose Aldo: A rematch of a 2018 MMA bout that saw Aldo fold Stephens with a nasty body shot. Aldo, one of the greatest of all time, recently retired from MMA after a loss to Merab Dvalishvili and is set to make his pro boxing debut in February. Stephens is 1-7 (1 NC) in his last 9 fights and should get decisively outclassed.
• Vitor Belfort vs. Jacare Souza: Another rematch, this one dating back to 2016. Souza used his legendary jiu-jitsu skills to maul Belfort on the mat, which he obviously won’t be able to do here. Both are well past their best, but both can punch, so it should be entertaining in a car accident sort of way.
• Paul Daley vs. Anthony Taylor: Daley retired last year after a career spent alternately knocking people out with left hooks and getting outclassed on the ground. Taylor is Taylor; I think we all know what to expect at this point.
• Pearl Gonzalez vs. Gina Mazany: Gonzalez had a fairly successful MMA run on the strength of her ground game, but is now 1-1 in bare knuckle and 2-0 as a pro boxer. Mazany is almost exclusively a grappler and has been pummeled into oblivion more than once on the feet, so I’m not sure this is the best career choice for her.