After months of anticipation, the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor has finally been made official. Mayweather vs McGregor will take place August 26th, 12 rounds or just boxing, have a 154-pound weight limit, and will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The entire event will be promoted by Mayweather Promotions and will have a full undercard, which will be all boxing and the matches will be made my Mayweather promotions. This type of fight promotes itself, but I’m sure that promotional tour will be a few can’t miss events.
The verbal jabs between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor have been going on for a while now. In all honesty, the lead-up and the press conferences for the fight may end up being more entertaining than the actual fight itself. This is a fight that will be filled with casual fans of the sport (both boxing and MMA). This is the biggest “event” that can be made and will be the biggest since we have Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao back in May of 2015. For the hardcore fans of boxing, it will be interesting to see how much they end up getting into this.
Mayweather has over 20 years of pro experience and also an amateur career that is also filled with accomplishments. He is considered the best of this generation and he is arguably the 1st boxer that changed the way boxers looked at how to make money, promoted their own brand and fights, as well as decide their opponents. It has not be said how much he will make for this fight, but it could fall into the range of 150 to even 200 mil. Early predictions have this fight doing at least 3 mil PPV buys and could come near to the 4.5 mil PPV buys that was done in Mayweather vs Pacquiao.
Conor McGregor was known in the MMA world for a couple years but really broke onto the scene when he KO’d Jose Aldo in 13 seconds in December of 2015. His brashness and cockiness can rub some people the wrong way, but it’s that same attitude that draws people in to watch him. The persona that McGregor gives off is very similar to Mayweather’s. He takes pics of his expensive cars, says things to piss people off, and most importantly, backs up his trash talk. Despite losing to Nate Diaz just 4 months after the Aldo fight, he continued to plow through PPV records to become the biggest draw in the sport.
Floyd Mayweather has been involved in the 3 biggest and highest grossing boxing events of all time. Mayweather vs Pacquiao, Canelo Alvarez, and Oscar De La Hoya combined to sell 9.28 PPV buys and brought in a PPV revenue of 696 mil. He has been involved in the only 3 boxing events to even get to 2 mil PPV buys. Mayweather was known Pretty Boy Floyd in the amateurs but turned into Money Mayweather when he fought De La Hoya. He has been known to take every advantage he can get, but despite that, everyone knows how great he really is. He is the quintessential money making machine.
There have only been 4 UFC PPV events to do over 1.3 mil buys, McGregor was in 3 of them, all within a 9-month span. The only other event that also did over 1.3 was UFC 100 between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir, which did 1.6 mil buys. McGregor’s 2nd fight against Mate Diaz, in which he won by decision, broke the record for more PPV buys by an MMA event, with 1.65 mil PPV buys. He is certifiably the top guy and the biggest draw that the sport has ever seen. He is to MMA what Floyd Mayweather is to boxing, the guy you either love or love to hate.
This fight should not be competitive. Anyone that has seen the tapes of Conor McGregor sparring, or even boxing in previous years, knows he is not on an elite level. Counter that with Mayweather being known and one of the most technically skilled boxers of all time and you get what could be an extremely underwhelming fight. However, since this is a casual type event, most people there will be there just to say they were there. I can’t say there is anything in this that will obviously help either sport, and it could easily hurt both sports, but no need in fighting it now. It’s official, so sit back and enjoy the ride.