Could McGregor-Mayweather happen?
UFC champion’s California boxing licence sets rumour mill in motion with prospect of ‘superfight’
>> NEW YORK: When Conor McGregor acts, people react.
So when the news broke late on Wednesday that McGregor had obtained a boxing licence in California, a frenzy of speculation began. Is McGregor — the most popular fighter in the UFC — planning to leave mixed martial arts for a boxing career? Is he setting up a superfight with the undefeated — and nominally retired — Floyd Mayweather?
McGregor is rapidly developing a reputation as someone who can do anything. He was already the dominant featherweight champion of the UFC when he jumped up two weight classes to split a pair of fights with Nate Diaz. He became the first fighter to hold two UFC belts simultaneously with a demolition of the lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez on Nov 12 at Madison Square Garden.
The road ahead seemed settled when the UFC said he would relinquish the featherweight belt to concentrate on his lightweight belt. Fights against the titans of the division like Rafael dos Anjos, Tony Ferguson and, most intriguingly, the undefeated Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov loomed.
Any card with t he popular McGregor on it delivers huge audiences, and the fighter and the promotion looked to have years of bigmoney events to come.
Now McGregor is suddenly a licensed boxer.
“He’s qualified,” Andy Foster, the executive officer of the California State Athletic Commission told the website MMA Fighting. “I’d love to see him fight in California. It just needs to be the right opponent. Certainly a high-level opponent. We’re happy to license him. We’re happy he’s a California fighter.”
Could that high-level opponent actually be Mayweather? The two men have sparred verbally about such a bout for months. Mayweather was widely quoted as saying last May: “If I do fight, it’s only against Conor McGregor. That’s going to be my only fight and not against nobody else because this match-up is just so intriguing.”
McGregor has called out Mayweather repeatedly. He also demanded US$100 million for the hypothetical bout.
But Leonard Ellerbe, the chief executive of Mayweather Promotions, poured cold water on the potential fight, telling ESPN that McGregor had “done a masterful con job to try to trick people that he could actually pull this off. It’s another creative way to create more interest. Nobody is mad, but it’s a con job trying to make people think this is real.”
In addition, McGregor is under contract to the UFC, which would probably have to agree to let him fight Mayweather and perhaps receive a cut in the action.
On paper, the possible bout seems like a mismatch. Mayweather, even at 39, is one of the greatest boxers in history. While McGregor has done some boxing training, he has never boxed professionally.
Getting a boxing licence is California a simple process, and does not require any great expense or proof of ability. There is every reason to think the whole thing is a whim or a publicity stunt, like McGregor’s sudden “retirement” last spring, which lasted a day or two.
McGregor is a gold mine for a sport that relies heavily on hype and colour to drive viewers to spend $50 or $60 for each card on pay-per-view.
But even if the odds are very long that the superbout will ever take place, the buzz has thrust everyone involved back into the headlines.
McGregor got what he wanted. Again.