We’re going to have to check it out just because a) Roy Jones is involved, who is an all time favorite of mine and b) it might be an epic trainwreck.

One thing that won’t be a trainwreck is Bobby Lashley, who will be making his second professional MMA appearance on the undercard. The only thing that Lashley lacks is experience in the sport–the guy is a beast, with many of the same tools as current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. He may actually be a *better* natural athlete than Lesnar which is downright sick to contemplate. He’s almost a physical mirror image of Lesnar at 6′3″ and need to cut to get down to 265–he may have more speed and agility than Lesnar, who moves amazingly well for a man his size.

The only reason that Lashley *isn’t* in the UFC is very likely that Lesnar is. Dana White has basically said that he doesn’t want to bring in a guy with essentially the exact same “gimmick” as his current champ. In the meantime, Lashley has been training with American Top Team in Florida (meaning that he’s getting better instruction at this point in his career than did Lesnar) where he spars with, among others, SAVSCI’s favorite Anarchist Jeff Monson. The talent at ATT is sick–their workouts and sparring sessions could be sold on pay-per-view.

American Top Team Fighter Roster @ ATT website

Anyway, Lashley will be fighting an as-of-yet unnamed opponent on the undercard of Roy Jones, Jr.’s boxing match in Pensecola, FL against perennial super middleweight contender Omar Sheika. Sheika is a good enough fighter, but was never able to break into the ‘top tier’ of the weight class and inevitably lost when he stepped up in class against guys like Joe Calzaghe and Jeff ‘Left Hook’ Lacy. He’s also been all but retired since his back-to-back losses to Lacy and then WBC champ Markus Beyer in late 2004/early 2005, only fighting once since (defeating Tiwon Taylor by TKO in 9/2007).

Also on the card will be Seth Petruzelli–forever to be known as “the dude that KO’d Kimbo” taking on a very tough challenger in former WEC light heavyweight champion Doug Marshall. Marshall lost the belt to US Marine Corps vet Brian Stann who then lost the belt to Steve Cantwell. Cantwell, of course, will be the last WEC light heavyweight champion as Zuffa has absorbed the division into the UFC.

Jeff Monson is tentatively slated to appear as well, assuming that his legal problems don’t rule him out. His match could be very entertaining, against Roy “Big Country” Nelson–last seen losing to Andrei Arlovski on the final EliteXC show.

This might all make for an interesting spectacle worth tuning in for except for the fact that RJ (who is promoting the event) is expecting people to pony up $$$ to watch it on PPV. That’s hard to see happening, especially without a major network TV vehicle for promotion. Anyway, here’s what the hardest working main in sports journalism–Michael David Smith–said about it at AOL Fanhouse:

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 also have my doubts about the pay-per-view worthiness of the MMA offerings. Nelson vs. Monson and Petruzelli vs. Doug Marshall are OK fights, but not the kinds of fights that fans will plunk down their hard-earned money to purchase. Lashley is probably the biggest draw of the MMA bunch, but his opponent hasn’t been named yet.

And then there’s the question of whether boxing fans want to watch MMA and MMA fans want to watch boxing. In general, there isn’t a lot of crossover between the two. I personally love both boxing and MMA and would love to see cards like this succeed, but I have my doubts.

While I’m fairly bullish longterm on boxing/MMA hybrid cards it’ll be necessary to promote it properly and will definitely need to offer compelling matchups in both sports. It’s also a new concept that’ll take some getting used to by American fans, though “hybrid events” have been done quite a bit in Japan and elsewhere. Our friends at FiteNite in Costa Rica had a hybrid boxing/MMA card that was very well received by the live fans and all in all a very entertaining evening of fighting.

Everything else MDS says, however, is right on the money–its going to be a tough sell on PPV. On the other hand, however, it should attract a decent live crowd. Since RJ is promoting the event himself and the fighter payroll doesn’t look outlandish he might still make money at it even with an abysmal PPV buyrate.

Seth Petruzelli, Bobby Lashley on undercard of Roy Jones’ march fight @ AOL Fanhouse