By Jim Dower: UFC chief Dana White says there isn’t a deal for a fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor. On Monday, there was news from the Irish Sun about Mayweather and McGregor having agreed to a deal for a boxing fight. A lot of fans subsequently got excited about the match-up.
“There is no deal,” said White to TMZ.com about the Mayweather-McGregor fight.
Before White spoke on the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight, there was talk about the two fighter shaving reached a deal for a fight, but that they still hadn’t signed the contract due to a “holdup from an unnamed 3rd party.” It was aid that McGregor would fly over to the U.S where he would likely finalize the deal with Mayweather.
It sounded pretty farfetched though that Mayweather and McGregor would ever face each other while McGregor was still under contract with the UFC. McGregor still has four fights under his contract with the company, and if he’s still winning by the time he finished out his contract in the next couple of years, then there could be a fight between him and Mayweather.
— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) February 14, 2017
Mayweather will be 42-years-old and will have been outside of the boxing ring for four years. If McGregor is still interested in facing a boxer, he might want to fight someone that is relevant in the sport of boxing like Saul Canelo Alvarez if his career is still going well by that point. The fans would be more interested in seeing McGregor fight a boxer that is still fighting rather than someone that has been working as a promoter for the last four years.
McGregor should try and fight a couple of exhibition matches in boxing to show the fans that he’s serious about wanting to do the fight and not just in it for a payday. The problem with McGregor fighting a previously good fighter like Mayweather is that he could be wrecking it for other MMA fighters that might want to take on top boxers for big paydays.
If McGregor gets totally beaten by Mayweather or some other boxer, then the fans are not going to want to see a similar type of fight in the future unless the MMA fighter proved himself before taking on a boxer. I don’t know what an MMA fighter like McGregor could do to prove himself. McGregor looked so bad in his recent sparring session against boxer Chris Van Heerden. It was a mismatch with Van Heerden out-boxing McGregor and making him look bad.