By Allan Fox: UFC star Conor McGregor is still very much interested in facing former six-division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a boxing match when/if he returns to the ring in the near future. McGregor and Mayweather would need to work out the money split for the fight to become a reality.
The 28-year-old McGregor reportedly wants $100 million for the Mayweather fight, which might be a realistic number if the fight creates the kind of interest that the Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight created last year in their ‘Fight of the Century’ in May 2015. For the Mayweather-McGregor fight to bring in that many fans, it would require a lot of boxing fans to purchase the fight. They would have to believe that it was a fair fight in which McGregor had a chance of winning.
Right now, it’s hard to imagine McGregor having even a slight chance of beating Mayweather. The fans that purchase a fight between Mayweather and McGregor would likely overwhelmingly come from the MMA side rather than the boxing side of the equation, because it would seem like such a mismatch to the knowledgeable fans of the pugilistic sport.
The idea of a MMA fighter competing with a top boxer is an absurd idea. It’s crazy. What hurts the potential of a fight between them taking place is how mediocre McGregor looked in a sparring session video between him and boxer Chris Van Heerden. McGregor made Van Heerden look like the best fighter in the world in the way he was toying with him inside the ring.
McGregor’s agent Audie Attar said this to ESPN.com about a fight between Mayweather and McGregor:
“All I can tell you is we are very interested if it’s serious. Ultimately, I think we have to see if it’s real or not. That’s what it comes down to,” said Attah. “Floyd may have been waiting to see if Conor is the real deal and I think how he handled his first adversity with Nate [Diaz], beating Nate the second time at 170 [pounds], dominating the lightweight champion, the first to hold two belts — I think he’s shown he’s for real.”
If Mayweather hasn’t gone for the fight against McGregor it’s likely because of his request/demand for parity in the negotiations. McGregor reportedly wants a 50-50 deal, and he wants $100 million for the fight. I don’t think Mayweather would be willing to give McGregor either of those things.
If McGregor gets a guarantee of $100 million, then that could limit dramatically what Mayweather makes out of the fight. If the fan interest in a fight between Mayweather and McGregor is less than overwhelming, then there won’t be a ton of money to be made on the fight. Mayweather can fight guys in the boxing world and take the bigger slice of the pie and make a lot of money, even if his opponent isn’t as famous as McGregor.
A rematch between Mayweather and Pacquiao would bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys. Pacquiao wouldn’t be asking for a 50-50 deal either. Mayweather would be the one getting the lion’s share of the money like before. But with McGregor wanting as much money as Mayweather, I think that’s a nonstarter. You can understand why McGregor would want as much money as Mayweather’s getting, because he’d be bringing in all the MMA fans.
That might result in half of the fans. The other half would come from Mayweather bringing in his boxing fans. However, if the fans see the fight as joke of a mismatch, then Mayweather might not be able to do his part to bring in his fans. In that case, most of the fans would be coming from McGregor’s side. Mayweather would be making out well in getting a 50-50 deal with McGregor.
“Look, it wasn’t something we started, right?” Attar said. “It was something Floyd started and Conor responded in kind on social media. It’s obviously built up public interest. Part of that may have been Floyd testing waters — I really don’t know what his motives are.”
With the glacial way that Mayweather moved in making the fight against Pacquiao in waiting six years before making that fight, we could be seeing him doing the same thing with McGregor. Unfortunately, the 39-year-old Mayweather doesn’t have the youth to have the boxing public wait six years for a fight between him and McGregor. Mayweather is now retired, and the fans will soon start forgetting about him if they haven’t already.
The time for Mayweather to make a fight between him and McGregor is right now or not at all. This isn’t one of those six-year deals where Mayweather can sit outside of the ring and let the McGregor fight marinate for the next six years. That only works if Mayweather is staying busy with his boxing career and proving to the fans that he’s still the No.1 fighter in the sport.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Mayweather has the drive and determination to get back into the ring to fight the likes of McGregor or Pacquiao. The ambition doesn’t appear to be there anymore for Mayweather. If Mayweather waits six years before he agrees to fight McGregor, it will have been too late. The fans will have largely forgotten about him, and McGregor will likely no longer be relevant as the top fighter in MMA. Fighters in the UFC have a very, very short shelf life as the No.1 guy.
Anderson Silva was a very rare exception to that rule. Silva was a UFC middleweight champion for seven years before he was beaten by Chris Weidman in 2013. In turn, Weidman’s reign lasted just two years before he was unseated as the UFC middleweight champion, and he’s now lost his last two fights.
If Mayweather wants the McGregor fight, then he’s going to need to take the fight soon, very soon. However, I think it would be a bad fight for boxing. It would likely be such a mismatch that the fans would be irate afterwards. Mayweather would toy with McGregor for as long as the fight lasted before knocking him out. Even if Mayweather carried McGregor for 12 rounds, it would have fans angry, because it would be so one-sided.
It’s possible that the pay-per-view prices would be hiked through the roof for a Mayweather vs. McGregor fight with fans being asked to pay $100 to watch the fight card on pay-per-view, similar to how prices were hiked to an all-time high for Mayweather’s fight against Pacquiao last year.