Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
UFC president Dana White refuted a report from The Sun that ring legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. and MMA superstar Conor McGregor are “on the verge” of a deal for a boxing fight.
According to the UK tabloid, an announcement will “likely” be made “in the coming weeks.”
But White isn’t betting on it and so shouldn’t the fans who got pumped up imagining a showdown between the two brash fighters.
“It’s not true; it’s just a tabloid story,” White told Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports. “And as far as I knew, Floyd is retired and he’s been on a world-wide vacation and hasn’t even been thinking of fighting.”
The report also said the fight will be staged in Las Vegas this summer with the former pound-for-pound king Mayweather set to make $114 million and UFC featherweight champion McGregor around $10 million.
Even lole, a respectable boxing journalist, himself, disagreed with The Sun.
“Even without White’s denial, the report made zero sense. Boxing and mixed martial arts are similar, but ultimately different sports. It’s like comparing baseball and softball, and suggesting that an MMA fighter could defeat a boxer in a boxing match would be like suggesting a slugger in softball could win a major league home run title. Or vice versa,” lole wrote.
“The bottom line is that the story isn’t true, no matter how much people would love for it to be. There are no better trash talkers in sports than Mayweather and McGregor, and a promotion featuring them would be epic,” lole added.
Mayweather, who retired last September, said he’s open to fighting again but only if it’s a title shot that would also give him a nine-figure payday.
A fight with McGregor could be big enough to generate that much money considering the two are the biggest stars in their respective fields and have shown disgust to one another through social media over the years.
But only if it would actually happen.