Floyd Mayweather has been teasing a potential UFC fight with Conor McGregor on social media this week. On Wednesday night, street reporters caught Conor McGregor outside a charity event in New York and asked him about the current state of things.
“He’s engaging, we’re engaging,” McGregor told Adam Glyn. “So we’ll see. I’m currently in negotiations to face my next opponent. We have many options. There’s the current interim lightweight champion (Tony Ferguson), there’s an undefeated Dagestani (Khabib Nurmagomedov). There’s maybe a big Russian event. There’s obviously the [Nate] Diaz trilogy. Of course, the Mayweather fight is there. There’s many options. We’re just at the table at the moment, so times is good. Life is good.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Mayweather posted a video online of him inside a cage at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas.
“Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather,” he said. “MMA. What are the odds?”
Come at the king, you best not miss... pic.twitter.com/uHx4SJngHx
— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) February 1, 2018
The video was clearly tied to his sponsor, the Irish betting site Paddy Power. He was even wearing their shorts inside the cage and mentioned “Paddy” in the promo.
McGregor said if this is all talk from Mayweather and just an endorsement ploy, it will be something he regrets.
“If it is, it will follow him for the rest of his days, that he did not do it,” McGregor said. “I said I would do it and I stepped up and I done it. It’s his time now.”
Showtime Sports executive Stephen Espinoza, who has worked closely with Mayweather for years, told TMZ that he would not completely rule out Mayweather fighting in the UFC. Espinoza said he planned to talk to “Money May” this week at the Super Bowl.
“Well, nobody thought that Mayweather vs. McGregor was a realistic thing, so I’ve learned not to question what Floyd is capable of pulling it off,” Espinoza said. … There’s a chance. Whatever he puts his mind to, he sort of wills it to happen. He willed the McGregor fight into happening. If he sets his mind to it, it will happen.”
Espinoza said Showtime would support Mayweather, adding that the fighter would only do it for a nine-figure payday.
“If he wants to take up UFC, if he wants to take up ice hockey, if he wants to take up figure skating, we’re with him,” Espinoza said. “We’ll back him up all the way.”
Mayweather and McGregor met in a boxing match last August in Las Vegas. Mayweather won via TKO in the 10th round after a very competitive start to the bout. Mayweather said he made somewhere in the range of $300 million for that fight, while McGregor claimed he made about $100 million. It ended up garnering 4.3 million pay-per-view buys in North America, the second highest total in history.
A UFC fight between the two would surely also do massive numbers and make everyone involved a ton of money, even if few would argue that it would be competitive.
“I’d do as I please against him inside the Octagon,” McGregor said. “If he does do it — I know he’s flirting with it — I would have respect for him. I think it would get his earned respect in if he was to step in.”