By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor start trying to sell their ‘event’ next week with a 4-city International press tour beginning next Tuesday, July 11 in Los Angeles, California. The two fighters need to promote their August 26 fight. After the press tour visits Los Angeles, Mayweather and McGregor will take their press tour to Toronto on Wednesday, July 12, and then New York on Thursday and London on Friday.
It’s going to be a grueling 4 days. This will be the first and likely the last professional boxing fight for McGregor. He’s never fought before professionally in the sport. The fans are going to be paying big money to see Mayweather fight a guy with no experience in McGregor.
There’s still official venue for the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight; although it’s expected to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the past, Mayweather has fought frequently at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It’s unclear why Mayweather wouldn’t fight there after all these years. The other thing that is still unknown is the PPV price for Showtime pay-per-view.
There’s been talk of the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight being sold for $100 to $110 on PPV. The price for the fight still hasn’t been announced for some reason. It would be better for the boxing public to know sooner rather than later if they’re going to be asked to pay in the $100 range, since it’ll give the fans more time to start saving their money up.
The timing for the Mayweather and McGregor fight is not the best. The fight is taking place 3 weeks ahead of a very popular match-up between middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez on September 16 on HBO PPV. That fight will be selling for $70 on PPV. Two PPV fights bunched close together like that is going to force a lot of boxing fans to make a decision whether to purchase the Mayweather-McGregor fight of the Canelo-Golovkin fight.
Fortunately for Mayweather, a lot of the fans that will be purchasing his fight against McGregor will be MMA fans, who normally never buy boxing PPV events anyway. McGregor tends to bring in over 1 million buys every time he fights. Mayweather can passively get those viewers to purchase his event against McGregor without having to worry about whether the fans will be scared off from buying it due to the arguably much better fight between Canelo and Golovkin taking place 3 weeks after their fight on September 16 on HBO PPV.
Mayweather is ending his 2-year retirement to fight McGregor for $100 million payday. Mayweather has had offers by real boxers like Gennady Golovkin, Saul Canelo Alvarez, and Keith Thurman. But he didn’t want to fight any of those fighters, preferring to fight the more popular McGregor for a bigger payday. Mayweather says his asking price is 9 figures. McGregor is the only guy that can bring him that kind of payday. Hopefully, Mayweather doesn’t start looking at other sports like basketball, football or soccer to find his next opponent that can give him another $100 million payday.
Mayweather-McGregor is hoping their fight breaks the PPV record of 4.6 million buys. They may ultimately get a lot of boxing and MMA fans to purchase their fight, but it’s hard to imagine more than 2 million buys for a non-sporting event like this. However, there seems to be a lack of buzz about the fight right now. When you compare the interest in the Mayweather-McGregor fight at this stage to the interest in the Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight, it’s like night and day.
There was a lot more interest in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, probably because it was seen as a real fight and not circus event/money grab. With the Mayweather and McGregor fight being viewed as just a way for the two stars to make money rather than giving the fans a true sporting event, it’s probably going to hurt the PPV sales for the fight, keeping it from coming anywhere close to the existing 4.6 million buy record from 2015.
What’s surprising that Mayweather-McGregor are only visiting 4 cities with their tour instead of going all out like Mayweather with in selling his fight with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013. They went on a 10-city press tour to promote that fight. It worked. The fight brought in 2.2 million buys. It cost a lot of money for the press tours. I guess they want to save the money they make rather than using some of it to promote the fight.
Former world champion Paulie Malignaggi, who is now retired from boxing, has been added by McGregor as one of his sparring partners to help him get ready for Mayweather. Malignaggi is a little bit smaller than Mayweather, and a lot slower. McGregor will likely be using Malignaggi to get coaching tips more than anything. Malignaggi is good at analyzing fighters and picking out their weaknesses.
Malignaggi can obviously tell McGregor all about Mayweather’s faults, but without the UFC fighter having the experience in boxing; it’s going to be knowledge that will likely go in one ear and out the other. McGregor has never fought in a boxing ring before. This will be the first time he’s ever fought in the sport, and he’s facing one of the best fighters. I wouldn’t call the 40-year-old Mayweather the best right now. He would likely lose to top welterweights Keith Thurman and Errol Spence. Being out of the ring for 2 years has likely taken away some of Mayweather’s boxing skills.
“This is my first time hearing it. I mean, nothing surprises me in this sport,” said Ward to Fighthype.com about Malignaggi signing on with McGregor as a sparring partner. “I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t go spar with anybody just to be sparring. I can’t say it’s a bad thing. I can’t say it’s a good thing. Paulie, he’s retired, so he probably has a different outlook on the game. It is what it is. I’m not surprised by it,” said Ward.
Of course, Ward wouldn’t have any interest in working as a sparring partner for the 28-year-old McGregor. Why would he? Ward is the unified light heavyweight world champion. His boxing career is going really well. Malignaggi was just knocked out by a British domestic level fighter in Sam Eggington. Malignaggi has a much different situation. If Malignaggi was a world champion like Ward, I don’t think he would even consider helping McGegor with sparring. You could argue that it would be demeaning for Malignaggi to work as a sparring partner if he were a world champion.
“Head knowledge for sure,” said Ward in saying what McGregor can gain from sparring with Malignaggi. “He can definitely get head knowledge, but when you get in there with the real deal, it’s a whole another ball game. It’s different. That stuff is going to go out the window. Head knowledge is not going to work when leather flies. Trust me. The only way that works is when you have experience in the game and you know how to apply it. You can acquire knowledge, but actually doing it is a whole another story. It’s not going to happen that quick,” said Ward about McGregor.
The stuff that McGregor learns from Malignaggi is not going to help him in the ring with Mayweather. This is like paint by the number system. Malignaggi can give McGregor a step by step formula to use against Mayweather, but without him having pro experience, it’s going to be a waste of time. It won’t come natural for McGregor. He’ll be thinking inside his head about Malignaggi has told him. While he’s thinking, he’s going to get nailed by Mayweather and likely knocked out. McGregor needs time to practice and use everything Malignaggi will be teaching him in the 2 months that be working with him. 2 months isn’t enough time to improve McGregor.
