By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor are saying that that their mega-fight is now official for August 26 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the same venue that Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao at in 2015 in the ‘fight of the century’ on HBO/Showtime pay-per-view.
The fight broke PPV records with 4.6 million buys. It’s thought that Mayweather-McGregor has the potential to break the PPV records set by Mayweather-Pacquiao. If that’s the case, Mayweather and McGregor will both walk away with a bundle of money. McGregor, 28, is the one that broke the news for the Mayweather fight on Wednesday, telling his fans about the fight being done BEFORE the purse splits had been negotiated. McGregor couldn’t wait, I guess. Mayweather’s adviser Al Haymon and McGregor’s UFC boss Dana White were both still working on finishing up the negotiations.
Having the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight take place at the MGM Grand rather than a larger venue like the T-Mobile is being done because Mayweather can control the prices of the tickets to the brokers, according to Lance Pugmire. What this means is unclear. Will Mayweather raise the prices of the tickets as high as the tickets were for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight? We’ll have to see. It wouldn’t be surprising if that’s the case.
Mayweather and McGregor have both started training for the fight already. It makes sense. They don’t have much time before August 26 to get ready. It’s more important for the 40-year-old Mayweather that he gets as much training time as possible, considering that he’s been out of the ring for 2 years since his win over Andre Berto in September 2015. Hopefully, Mayweather makes it through training camp without suffering a debilitating injury that causes the McGregor fight to be postponed.
The weight for the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight will be at 154 pounds, a move that will make it easier for the 28-year-old McGregor to make the weight. The Nevada State Athletic Commission is reportedly on board with the fight, which is good news because it’s matching a novice in McGregor against the best fighter in boxing. It’s hard to wrap your teeth around a fight like that. It’s like taking a high school football team and throwing them out there in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. This is something you only see in boxing.
Showtime Boxing executive Stephen Espinoza has approved the date for the Mayweather-McGregor with August 26th being the date. There’s still no word about how much the tickets and pay-per-view will cost. There’s been talk that the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight may go as high as $100 on PPV. Let’s hope that the fight is much more reasonably priced, because this could be bad for the sport of boxing if it turns out to be a mismatch or another dull fight like the overpriced Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight wound up being in 2015. The PPV industry for boxing is only now recovering from that less than action-packed fight.
Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) will be looking for win No.50 against 2 division UFC champion McGregor in a fight that will be fought under the rules of boxing. The undercard hasn’t been put together, but two of Mayweather’s fighters Gervonta Davis and Badou Jack are likely going to be on the card. Jack would be fighting for a world title against WBA World light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly.
McGregor is a HUGE 25:1 underdog against Mayweather, according to Lance Pugmire. Unless McGregor can talk his way to a win, he’s going to have a hard time trying to defeat Mayweather on August 26. To create enough buzz for the Mayweather-McGregor fight to break the pay-per-view record set between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in 2015, they’re going to need to talk up McGregor’s punching power to make the boxing public believe that he has a chance of winning. MMA fans will likely purchase the Mayweather-McGregor fight just because McGregor is fighting and he’s seen as the huge underdog.
I don’t think there’s going to be too many problems getting the MMA fans to purchase the fight. Whether the boxing public will purchase the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight in high enough numbers for it to break the 4.6 million buy record set by Mayweather vs. Pacquiao is the real question. The saying from the movie, ‘Fields of Dreams,’ “If you build it, they will come.” I don’t know if that’s going to necessarily work with the Mayweather-McGregor fight.
It’s a crazy fight, but I’m not sure there’s going to be enough gullible fans willing to pay to see this fight due to it being such a poor match. Part of what got the boxing public excited about Mayweather’s fights against Pacquiao and Saul Canelo Alvarez was the potential that Mayweather could lose those fights. The boxing fans were excited at paying to see a fight where they didn’t know who would win. With the Mayweather-McGregor fight, the fans already know who’s going to win. The only thing they don’t know is in what fashion will Mayweather win?
Mayweather vs. McGregor fight could cripple Canelo vs. Golovkin fight
The date for the Mayweather-McGregor fight could cripple the September 16 fight on rival network HBO PPV between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. There’s 3 weeks that separate the 2 fights, but it’s not good news for the Canelo-Golovkin fight no matter how you spin it. The simple fact of the matter is the boxing fans are probably not going to want to purchase 2 PPV fights within 3 weeks’ time. That’s too short of a time frame between the two fights. One of the fights is going to be hurt with fewer PPV purchases from the boxing fans. You have to figure that the fight that comes second, Canelo vs. Golovkin, will be the one that will be negatively impacted. Fans will naturally purchase the fight that comes first due to it being the one that comes sooner. It doesn’t matter if the Mayweather-McGregor contest is seen as non-competitive fight between the best fighter in the sport in Mayweather facing a novice in McGregor. The boxing fans will purchase that fight and likely choose not to see the much better fight between Canelo and Golovkin on September 16.
It’s too bad Golden Boy selected September 16th for the Canelo-Golovkin fight, because now they’re stuck as the second act with their fight coming 3 weeks after what will likely be a very, very expensive fight between Mayweather and McGregor on August 26. A lot of the focus from the boxing world that would have been targeted on Canelo-Golovkin will now be put on the Mayweather-McGregor fight. There will be competition between the two fights.
McGregor was beaten by Nate Diaz by a 2nd round rear-naked choke at UFC 196 on March 5, 2016. In a rematch between the two fighters five months later, McGregor won a controversial 5 round majority decision over Diaz at UFC 202 on August 20. A lot of fans felt that McGregor should have lost that fight. He was beaten up around the face, and he looked bad. However, McGregor came back strong in defeating UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez by a 2nd round knockout at UFC 205 on November 12, 2016. McGregor hasn’t fought since then. McGregor’s stand up striking skills was far too good for Eddie Alvarez to handle.
Mayweather has beaten some of the best fighters in the sport of boxing over the years. He has wins over Canelo, Marcos Maidana, Diego Corrales, Jose Luis Castillo, Miguel Cotto and Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather’s 2 wins over Castillo were controversial, however. Mayweather has been criticized by the fighters that he’s chosen not to fight like Kostya Tszyu, Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams, Keith Thurman, Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, and Demetrius Andrade.
There’s also a lot of boxing fans who believe that Mayweather intentionally waited 6 years until Manny Pacquiao got old before he finally fought him. Pacquiao was no longer in his prime when Mayweather did fight him. Some feel that Mayeather waited on purpose until Pacquiao had been knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez and beaten by Tim Bradley before he finally agreed to fight him.