Almost a year has passed and the internet is still not over the rumors, the gossip and the reviews on Mayweather and McGregor fight. While half of the combat sports world thinks the fight is a publicity stunt (which is working pretty fine actually), another half thinks that it is just about two people, at the prime of their fame and expertise trying to build the world where boxing meets MMA.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO, Oscar De La Hoya, a name taken for the sake of how good boxing promotions should do, belongs to the first half of the world. According to him,
“It’s like a circus. Will we see that fight? I strongly feel we won’t, both guys are characters, they’re flamboyant, they do all their talking outside the ring. I believe that both men have too big of egos to share the revenues among themselves. Plus, they have to share it with the UFC.”
He may be right about the part where he called this scenario a circus, but it serves two purposes and not one. It sounds very exciting and secondly, it will bring new fans to the already build-up fan-base.
So what is keeping them from actually fighting and getting it over with? With everyone obsessing over the rumors, the excitement and buzz of their fight was suddenly overshadowed after the grand fight between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko last weekend, a fight many claim to have saved the boxing world. Also a fight with zero trash talk and brash publicity stunts. While Heavyweight boxing or high profile MMA fights need their own space, there’s no denying the fact that bringing two fan followings together could result in the biggest PPV in sports history, potentially dwarfing Pac man vs Mayweather and the recent mega-showdown between Joshua and Klitschko.
De La Hoya himself is an Olympic gold medalist and he is doubting the capabilities of McGregor ever winning a boxing match against the legend of boxing, Mayweather.
“I see no chance of Conor Beating Floyd, Floyd will outdance for 12 rounds. I don’t think McGregor understands how difficult it is to fight for 12 rounds. In the UFC, you fight three rounds for five rounds. Fighting 12 rounds is a whole different story”
Fans think that he wants the world’s attention to get diverted to the match between Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in Las Vegas this Saturday since he is promoting them because the whole boxing-MMA fusion is too great a story to ignore when it comes to combat sports. And, Dana White ‘said’ the fight will happen but he used the word ‘ego’ too, remember?
“I do. I do think it’s going to happen, I think it’s going to be a tough deal, there’s obviously a lot of egos involved in this deal and a lot of people so that always makes it tougher. On the flipside, there’s so much money involved, I just don’t see how it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for my business, but I would never keep Conor from making that kind of money. He obviously has a lot of opportunities right now, Tony Ferguson is out there. The Floyd Mayweather thing is out there. We’ll see how this turns out.”
But: “We’ll see what happens,” and “Let’s see how that turns out” are UFC’s most used sentences these days. Negotiations, money, sponsors, promoters, media and critics love the idea of two worlds colliding to create a magical world where MMA and boxing go hand in hand, creating new and interesting fights. Mayweather retired with a 49-0 record and McGregor sits on a LOT of fame and money mixed with an outstanding 21-3 record in his career. We just heard from Mayweather accepting how good McGregor is,
“Conor McGregor is the second biggest name in MMA. So, I’m not gonna sit right here and knock Conor McGregor. He’s gone out there and done what he’s had to do. It’s obvious he’s done something right thus far to get to the point where he’s at. I’ve been off for a couple years and I’m 40 years old now. So, I’m a lot older and he’s still in his 20s and I’m in my 40s now. So that could play a major key, we don’t know. And he’s a heavy hitter. Every time he goes out there and defeats fighters, he’s standing up. He’s in a boxing position and he’s beating fighters. Does he have a good chance of upsetting Floyd Mayweather? I can’t say, but anything can happen in the sport of boxing.”
Okay, so basically every boxing and MMA fan have to wait for either of them to actually fight or start talking about other fighters and their fights rather than sitting around and biting their teeth on who said what. We are back to this famous UFC saying: ‘Let’s see how that turns out’.
