AFTER Conor McGregor declared he had cleared a contractual hurdle to be able to fight Floyd Mayweather, the American superstar had maintained a coy silence on the subject of fighting McGregor. But in London Mayweather revealed he will assemble his business team to move forward with making the potential contest.
“When I get back to the US, I’ll communicate with my team. I’ll call Al [Haymon], I’ll get Al and Leonard [Ellerbe] on a business call and see what’s out next move,” he said. “Most likely when we do make a move it’s going to be a huge move. You already know when Floyd Mayweather fights, it’s history. The only thing that I’m chasing now is my own records because we all know in the sport of boxing, I broke every record. So the only thing I will be doing is chasing my records and when the time comes you all will be at the event, it’ll be the same thing. I’ll probably be sitting up here by myself answering a lot of questions.”
He fell short of guaranteeing that he’d box again, although he said, “But if I do fight, there’s a 90% chance it’s against Conor McGregor.”
“The only fight that makes sense to me is the McGregor fight. I’ve accomplished everything that I want to accomplish but I guess I have one more obstacle that I have to get over,” he continued. “Conor McGregor is a professional and I’m a professional. He’s a stand up fighter and I’m a stand up fighter. He can kick ass in the Octagon, I kick ass in the boxing ring, at the end of the day it’s still ass kicking. It is what it is. You have to give the people what they want to see.”
The pathway towards making this fight has been cleared. Mayweather has made it clear that he’s open to it, and that no one other than McGregor can tempt him out of retirement. The UFC won’t block the Irishman from taking it and he has applied for a boxing licence in Nevada.
It could even be made quickly. “It’s possible but we don’t want to rush, we don’t want to rush,” Floyd said. “I’m being smart on the outside by surrounding myself with smart people.”
Mayweather certainly sounds like a satisfied man. He said, “Just to be in the sport and make $800 million, it’s a blessing. And it wouldn’t hurt to throw another couple of hundred million on top of that.”
