COULD Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather really meet in a boxing event? The thought seems preposterous at first. McGregor has had a smattering of amateur experience and in MMA he is a good striker, as the saying goes. He is also a massive star in the UFC, generating huge interest and a tremendous following. That is what is enough to get him in the frame for a fight with Floyd Mayweather, even though in sporting terms he does not merit it.
The business case might even be enough to persuade Mayweather to take a fight that would be far more like a bizarre exhibition for him, rather than a fair fight. In practice, it would make the Andre Berto fight look good. And technically, with McGregor a licenced boxer, if the Nevada athletic commission permitted such a match up, it would mean Mayweather could extend his record to 50-0 as absurd as boxing the gung ho Irishman would be.
Mayweather hasn’t ruled it out, just publicly insisting that he would need to be assured of earning $100 million, vastly more than McGregor would make. But Floyd even went as far as suggesting the weight they could fight at, 147 or 150lbs that is.
It is the fight McGregor is interested in. “I’m going to go conquer two worlds,” McGregor has declared. “He needs rules to protect him. I don’t need rules.”
The major stumbling block would surely be the UFC itself. It remains to be seen how McGregor could extract himself from that organisation to take part in a fight with Mayweather. Equally it’s unclear to what extent Mayweather, who has his own promotional company, would allow the UFC to be involved.
Yet, in the curious world of modern day boxing, such a match up still feels all too plausible.
