By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez may not be ready to fight unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in a the ring, but one fighter that he does appear ready to face is MMA star Conor McGregor, albeit in a boxing match and not in his own sport. Two fighters have been trading barbs at one another since McGregor took a shot at him by pointing out that there is too much “cherry picking” going on in the sport of boxing.
Canelo then returned fire by saying that McGregor “gasses out after two rounds.” That was before McGregor’s recent five round decision over Nate Diaz in their rematch last month at UFC 202. Now Canelo is saying he’ll fight McGregor if he comes to the sport of boxing.
“If he wants to try out boxing, then anytime he wants. If he wants to come over to this side of the world and try boxing, anytime he wants, to see that it’s not as easy as he thinks,” Alvarez said to Fightbub.com.
Canelo might have competition for a fight against McGregor because Floyd Mayweather wants to fight him too.
A fight between Canelo and McGregor likely would be undoable due to the purse requirements of the two fighters. McGregor would likely want at least a 50-50 deal for a fight against Canelo, and that’s probably not something that would be agreeable to him or his promoters at Golden Boy. Canelo has become accustomed to getting the lion’s share of the loot recently in his fights since losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, and he might not be willing to give the 28-year-old McGregor a 50-50 deal if he asks for it.
Further, McGregor is still under contract with UFC, so he would probably need to be given the green light from them before he could fight in a boxing ring against a fighter like Canelo. It would be a potentially bad move on McGregor’s part to take the fight because he would likely be giving away a lot of weight to Canelo in addition to experience inside the ring.
If UFC wants to be involved in the promotion for a fight between McGregor and Canelo, then that would take some negotiating on Golden Boy’s part to make the fight happen. I don’t think it would be an easy fight to put together if McGregor’s management were to agree to the fight, which I don’t think they ever will.
It would be better if Canelo and McGregor agreed to some kind of a hybrid boxing/MMA fight with certain things being allowed. For instance, it would be a potentially interesting fight if there was no ground combat allowed, but with kicking permitted. At least if McGregor had the chance to use his legs, he would stand a better chance of beating Canelo. In a boxing ring, McGregor would have virtually no chance of beating him in my opinion. McGregor didn’t look at all good in the video of him sparring with boxer Chris Van Heerden recently. If McGregor couldn’t get the better of someone like Van heerden in sparring, then he would stand no chance against Canelo.