Conor McGregor doesn’t see his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the end of the road for his fledgling boxing career. He says he’ll do both the UFC and boxing and rule both of those sports with an iron fist.
Few people believe him though. If McGregor loses badly to the 40-year-old Mayweather as many are expecting, they think it’s going to be difficult for him to continue finding fights. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum doesn’t see any of the big boxing promoters taking interest in McGregor, because there are so many more talented fighters than him.
McGregor has so much to learn in how to fight, and it takes many years. He won’t have the time to devote to learning the trade with him still competing in the UFC.
“Boxing has been dear to my heart my entire life. I will contend in boxing bouts going forward,” said McGregor via the latimes.com. ”And I will contend in mixed martial arts bouts going forward. I will rule both with an iron fist. That’s where my mind-set is. We’ll see where it goes.”
McGregor sounds delusional. He can’t be serious about him contending in boxing and MMA, and ruling both of them. I think McGregor is just saying this so he can get more fans excited about his August 26 fight against Mayweather so that they’ll purchase it on Showtime pay-per-view, and buy tickets.
The fight still isn’t sold out with less than 2 weeks to go. What McGregor appears to be doing by letting the fans know that this isn’t the end of his boxing career is he’s giving them false hope that he’ll continue fighting in that sport in the future. If fans think they’ll be seeing McGregor in the squared circle again in the future other boxing matches, they’ll be more interested paying to see him fight Mayweather on August 26.
“After he fights Mayweather, the only promoter I think who might be interested in promoting him is [smaller, East Coast-based promoter] Artie Pelulo,” said Bob Arum to the latimes.com. “Who the … would want to promote this guy? He can’t fight for … . Don’t you understand? He’s not a boxer. It’ll take him years to understand. And there’s so many more talented guys around.”
I bet Mayweather and UFC president Dana White wouldn’t be happy to hear Arum talking so negatively about the McGregor-Mayweather fight, because they’re hoping a massive amount of will purchase the fight on PPV. The more fans purchase the fight the more money they’ll make from the fight.
McGregor is a 6:1 underdog in the fight, and it does not seem possible that he can win this fight without some kind of miracle occurring. McGregor could land the perfect shot to knock Mayweather out. It’s not likely to happen, but anything is possible in boxing. Mayweather could get old, tired and end walking into one of McGregor’s slapping punches. However, I didn’t see any particularly powerful punches from McGregor in his sparring clips with Paulie Malignaggi. There’s nothing I saw from McGregor that Mayweather has to worry about.
If McGregor loses to Mayweather, he might have some promoters interested in him if he looks good in losing. If he makes Mayweather struggle to beat him, he could be in demand by the top promoters in short time deal. I think it would be hard for the top promoters to look to sign McGregor for more than 2 to 3 fights at best, considering the likelihood that he would be beaten once he’s matched against a decent fighter.
Promoters will put money into a fighter to build them up if they see them having long term success, but McGregor is up there in age at 29. He won’t have a long shelf life to do well against top fighters. If he looks bad in losing to Mayweather, then the best McGregor could hope for are maybe a couple of fights against some contenders. McGregor would be good for at least one additional payday fight in boxing before he’s forgotten about. It doesn’t matter though if McGregor’s stint as a boxer fizzles out quickly after the Mayweather fight. He’ll have already made $100 million for this fight. That’s a lot more than what many of the super talented fighters in the boxing world will ever make. Even fighters like Gennady Golovkin, Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux likely will never see that kind of money during their careers in boxing. Those guys are very talented and have been fighting since they were young.
McGregor is going to make more money in the Mayweather fight alone than those guys likely will ever see during their careers. That’s unfair, I know. Boxing is a sport unlike other sports. There’s a sense of unfairness to boxing. You get fighters that aren’t necessarily the best getting more money than fighters that are better than them. McGregor didn’t even have to prove himself first before he got a fight against Mayweather. The fight was given to him just based on what he’d done in the UFC.
“If you’re going to get yourself in serious discussions about this guy winning, you’re going to look like a fool,” said Arum about McGregor.“[McGregor] has absolutely no reason to be in the ring with a skilled, professional fighter. And if I was wrong, why didn’t he fight some journeyman to show you belong in the ring?”
Arum says he was interested in matching his fighter Manny Pacquiao against McGregor in a one off thing, because he felt it would be a super easy fight for Pacquiao. Mayweather beat Arum to that fight though. Even if McGregor is destroyed by Mayweather, Arum would STILL be better off matching Pacquiao against McGregor in the final fight of his career than putting him in with Terence Crawford. McGregor has a way of roping in fans with his charisma, and a fight between him and Pacquiao would still do very well on HBO PPV. I would hope that Arum would at least make it a PPV fight, because McGregor probably wouldn’t be interested in fighting Pacquiao on ESPN for free. Somehow, I don’t think that would fly with McGregor. Arum would need to do better than that.