Conor McGregor looking desparate, still wants Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 08/01/2020 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Conor McGregor is joining Mikey Garcia, and promoter Bob Arum is trying to set-up a fight against Manny Pacquiao. Showing what some boxing fans might construe as pure desperation, the former two-division UFC champion McGregor, 33, tweeted in Pacquiao’s native language the words “I accept,” which can only mean that he’s agreed to a fight with Manny.

The president of MP Promotions Sean Gibbons that there haven’t been any negotiations with McGregor, and feels he’s just bored and hanging around now that he’s retired from the UFC and inactive.

You can’t blame the Irish fighter McGregor for at least trying to entice the 41-year-old Pacquiao to fight him, can you?

In August 2017, McGregor talked his way into a fight against superstar boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr and ended up getting a fat $100 million payday.

McGregor made big money fighting Mayweather

Mayweather stopped the hapless McGregor in the 10th round in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Mayweather-McGregor clash, which was barely watchable due to the slow-motion punching from both fighters, hauled in $55,414,865.79 with the live gate.

The money that McGregor received for the Mayweather greatly surpassed what he’d done during his entire career in the UFC.

For that reason, it’s not unexpected that McGregor is trying to get a fight against Manny because it’s easy money. It’s not that the 5’9″ McGregor would have any chance of winning. Let’s not get it twisted. McGregor stands no chance whatsoever of beating Manny in this lifetime.

Image: Conor McGregor looking desparate, still wants Pacquiao fight

But what McGregor can get is a big payday, which is what this is all about. If McGregor can get Pacquiao to agree to the fight, then it’s all gravy from there. McGregor would help sell the farce through a promotional tour, then take his loss to Pacquiao and collect the loot from the gullible fans that purchase it on PPV or watch it live.

 

“I’m not positive what his most recent cryptic tweet was, but reading it through, it seems like he still has a lot of interest in getting in the ring with the senator,” said Gibbons to Ring TV about McGregors Tweet on Friday.

“Conor’s retired at the moment from MMA, and he’s probably just sitting around during this pandemic time, looking for things to do and bored, and he decided to restart the conversation, it looks like,” Gibbons said.

Pacquiao will be paid well facing Conor

If Pacquiao is money-driven, then his best option is to pick McGregor over Mikey Garcia and Terence Crawford. Neither of those two boxers has the personality to sell a fight against Pacquiao, and you can’t expect the Filipino star to promote it on his own.

Manny doesn’t possess the personality either to do the heavy lifting of building interest in a match against Crawford or Mikey. So, if money is the thing that Pacquiao wants more than anything in his next fight, then McGregor is the way to go. Chris Williams would choose Mcgregor over Mikey and Crawford without even thinking.

Image: Conor McGregor looking desparate, still wants Pacquiao fight

It’s a no-brainer. Pacquiao would be following Mayweather’s lead in choosing an MMA fighter for an easy payday. What’s wrong with making money? You want the opponent that will bring in the most amount of sweet cash, and that’s McGregor by a mile. If Crawford and Mikey weren’t so wooden promoting their fights, then either of them would be great options.

Unfortunately, they lack in that department. Pacquiao would likely make more money fighting a rematch against Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman, who he just beat last year in July, then he would facing Mikey or Crawford.

“We’d love to get back in the ring in 2020, I’m just not sure it’s going to be possible with the pandemic and not being able to have audiences in crowds,” continued Gibbons about Pacquiao possibly not fighting in 2020.

“It’s really kind of a fluid situation as you have to see what happens in the next month or two.”

Pacquiao has his senatorial responsibilities 

Manny is in a bind due to his political job as one of the senators in the Philippines. If Pacquiao takes a fight right now during the pandemic, some of his constituents will see him as helping himself in a self-serving way while they’re suffering due to the killer virus that has wiped out many people’s lives.

Image: Conor McGregor looking desparate, still wants Pacquiao fight

It would look incredibly bad for Pacquiao to take a timeout from political office to make a fight against McGregor, Crawford, or Mikey. Pacquiao is said to be interested in running for the job as the president of the Philippines.

If Manny takes a fight right now, his competitors for that position will surely remind the voters of what he did in abandoning them further to enrich himself against McGregor, Mikey, or Crawford.

Of course, Pacquiao could always step down from his senatorial post and take the fight, but he’s probably not going to do that. H seems to like being a politician.

McGregor retired from the UFC after his first-round stoppage win over Donald Cerrone on January 18. That was McGregor’s first fight back since his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018.

Vacating WBA title an option for Manny

If Pacquiao does want to return to the ring to face Mcgregor, then he needs to either vacate his WBA welterweight title or call it an exhibition match, which is what it should be.

YouTube video

It was embarrassing that the Nevada State Athletic Commission sanctioned the Mayweather-McGregor fight as a professional match, given that McGregor had NEVER fought before in boxing and had a record of 0-0.

It makes a mockery of the sport of boxing for boxers to be taking on MMA fighters and celebrity YouTubers being added to undercards to pump interest in fight events. It’s a race to the bottom, cheapening boxing, and turning it into a circus clown show.

On the flip side, if Pacquiao wants to make money, who are we to say he shouldn’t do what he needs to for that to happen.

If you’re Pacquiao, you’re better off fighting McGregor than facing Crawford and potentially losing and making a lot less money. If Pacquiao is going to take a risk with his career, he needs to face Errol Spence, not Crawford.