Floyd v McGregor would be a flop just like the rest

CHATTER among the fighting classes this week that the first ‘billion-dollar’ prize fight could shortly be delivered between unbeaten (and supposedly retired) boxer Floyd Mayweather Jnr and mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor is nothing new. It follows in a long line of novelty cross-code contests.

Most who enter the boxing ring from other spheres are imposters turning the events into freak shows. Pitching the irascible, funny and very talented Irishman, who has become the lightning rod for a generation of young followers of cage-fighting, against unbeaten five-division world champion Mayweather in a boxing match ought to be an epic mismatch. But there are still millions who would be willing to pay to see the spectacle.

Indeed, Mayweather already knows the drill. The American stepped into the world of professional wrestling for ‘‘WrestleMania XXIV’’ in March 2008 and, weighing 10st 10lb, took on 7ft tall, 28-stone giant Paul Donald Wight II, aka ‘Big Show’. Held at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, the event generated over US$75 million with more than a million pay-perview buys.

In the ‘David v Goliath’ matchup, Mayweather ‘knocked out’ Wight, who is said to have told the boxer beforehand to ‘‘break his nose’’.

There are many examples of cross-code fighters going at it, and it rarely, if ever, works. But big names get drawn in time and again. In 1971, 7ft 2in basketball player Wilt ‘The Stilt’ Chamberlain signed a contract to fight Muhammad Ali at the Houston Astrodome. It was a great stunt, though the fight never came to fruition. Wilt was taller, heavier, and had over a foot on Ali in reach. Chamberlain was serious, too. But it was his father, a boxing fan, who warned his son off the fight.

When, infamously, in 1976 Ali himself took part in a mixed martial arts fight with Antonio Inoki, the Japanese wrestler, it was a flop. Ali threw a total of six punches in the bout in Tokyo, and Inoki spent most of the ‘fight’ on his back, throwing kicks at Ali’s legs.

A long line of American footballers have crossed into boxing, with little success. Ed ‘Too Tall’ Jones, a defensive star for the Dallas Cowboys, 6ft 9in tall and 20st, had six fights, but his opponents became increasingly poor.

Arguably the one figure in modern-day boxing to make a success of crossing codes is Vitali Klitschko, the former world heavyweight champion, now the Mayor of Kiev, who had a career as a world champion kick-boxer before joining boxing’s paid ranks. But such success is rare.

One of the most bizarre match-ups came in 1916, when Arthur Cravan, the poet and book publisher, gloved up to fight Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world at a bullring in Barcelona.

Craven, through marriage a nephew of Oscar Wilde, was a staggering self-publicist. He had entered a competition for rookie boxers and, when nobody else showed, was declared the lightheavyweight champion of France without even throwing a punch.

Facing ‘Galveston Giant’ Johnson, Cravan froze. A bemused Johnson ‘carried’ Cravan for six rounds, before cuffing the poet and knocking him out. Telegraph, London