By Allan Fox: Conor McGregor has signed an agreement for a mega-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., but now he’s waiting for him to sign his part. McGregor says Mayweather needs to sign the contract or else he’s just a mouth that talks. Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) is still saying that there’s no rush for him to sign for the fight against the 28-year-old McGregor. Mayweather wants to make sure that he’s the “A-side” in the promotion. He’s confident that he will be fighting the UFC star when he gets back inside the ring for his next and perhaps final fight of his career.
Solid work today.
Sign your end Floyd or you are just a mouth. pic.twitter.com/YWCqoHWA2B— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) May 21, 2017
Mayweather, 40, has taken a lot of criticism from the hardcore boxing fans, who don’t like the idea of him cherry-picking a fight against McGregor. The fans point out that McGregor has never fought a pro fight before, and it won’t be fair for Mayweather to face an inexperienced fighter like that. Mayweather sees McGregor as not a novice because of his experience in the UFC where he does a lot of his fighting in the stand-up position. However, McGregor isn’t facing guys from boxing backgrounds inside the octagon in his UFC fights.
McGregor is fighting guys that have come strictly from wrestling and MMA backgrounds, and neither of those sports prepare a fighter for boxing fights. MMA might give a fighter some rudimentary stand up skills, but not nearly enough for them to beat a top tier boxer.
“I never said I will fight again, but if I do 90 per cent it will be against Conor McGregor,” said Mayweather via The Sun. “I am here working, When I get back to the U.S, I will communicate with my team and see what our next move is. There is no rush,” said Mayweather.
When Mayweather says, “There is no rush,” it reminds one of how much time he wasted before he fought Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather wasn’t in a rush to put that fight together as well, and he ended up waiting 6 years before he finally fought the Filipino star. By the time the fight was put together, Pacquiao was older, slower and not the fighter that he was in his prime. Mayweather wasn’t the same fighter either.
The fight was like watching two geezers battle it out, with neither of them looking inspired to battle hard and put on a good show the way that a younger, hungrier fighter would do. Mayweather doesn’t have the youth to wait 6 years before fighting McGregor. If Mayweather’s idea of dragging the McGregor fight out is an attempt to create more interest in the fight, then I think it’s going to be a fail.
The longer Mayweather waits the more likely the fans are going to forget about him. Right now, Mayweather is starting to be seen by boxing fans as a promoter than a fighter. That’s not good. If the boxing public sees Mayweather as only an aging guy that only promotes, then they’re less likely going to want to shell out money to see him fight a novice like McGregor.
Mayweather might not see there being a rush for him putting together a fight against McGregor, but he’s the one that has been out of the ring for 2 years now. The longer that Mayweather waits to put the fight with McGregor together, the more the boxing public will forget about him. It isn’t enough for Mayweather to just constantly talk to the boxing media about fighting McGregor. Pretty soon the fans are going to tune out if Mayweather doesn’t return to the ring and get this fight with McGregor over with. It’s not seen as a great fight anyway.
It’s only seen as good fight in the minds of the MMA fans in my view. The boxing public thinks that Mayweather is picking on a guy with no skills in McGregor in order to get a payday in a safe fight without risk. It’s a much different reality for the ring rusty 40-year-old Mayweather to fight someone that is dangerous like Gennady Golovkin or Keith Thurman. Those guys have been trained in the sport of boxing, and they’re both considered the best in their respective divisions. Mayweather could have fought one of them. Instead, Mayweather is looking for what shapes up to be an easy fight against McGregor.
“When we make the move it will be a huge move – you know when Floyd fights it’s history,” said McGregor. “I have broken every record,” said Mayweather.
I don’t know if the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight is going to bring in big numbers. I have my doubts. A lot of boxing fans view the Mayweather-McGregor fight as a sham fight. They don’t see it as one that promises to be competitive like we saw when Mayweather fought Saul Canelo Alvarez, Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao. The boxing public isn’t calling for Mayweather to fight McGregor. They are not interested in that fight. The fans want to see Mayweather fight Golovkin, Canelo or Thurman. Mayweather vs. McGregor is a fight that is viewed as another Mayweather vs. Andre Berto or Robert Guerrero type mismatch. It’s actually even worse than those fights, because Berto and Guerrero at least were trained fighters and former world champions in boxing. McGregor is just MMA guy, who was recently beaten by Nate Diaz.
“When it is time to do what I have to do, it will be tremendous,” said Mayweather. “The only fight that makes sense to me is the McGregor fight. It is one more obstacle. If the fans around the world want to see it then we have to give those fans what they want to see,” said Mayweather.
McGregor can count on bringing his MMA fans to see him fight Mayweather. We’re probably talking about 1 million buys from McGregor’s fans alone. As far as boxing fans, I think there will be at least 400,000 buys coming from those fans. Since it’s a Mayweather-Berto type of fight, I can’t see more than 400K from the boxing public in terms of PPV buys. I’d be surprised if it goes more than 400,000 from the pugilistic fans. Those fans don’t really follow MMA, and they’ve probably never seen McGregor fight before. For the fans that have seen two or three of McGregor’s fights, it’s unlikely they were impressed with what they saw. It takes a while to build up a fan base. McGregor has only had a handful of fights.
Mayweather-McGregor will help the MMA sport grow at the expense of boxing. It’ll make more fans of McGregor unless he’s turned into a clown by Mayweather. I don’t think it’s going to help boxing siphon off the MMA fans, because Mayweather is going to take the loot he gets from the McGregor fight and likely go back into retirement. I don’t think Mayweather is going to return to fighting boxers, because the fans want him to fight good opposition. Mayweather would have to fight the best if he came back, because the boxing fans won’t purchase his fights on PPV if all he’s going to do is fight guys like Berto and Guerrero.
