What’s the story?
The entire world has been talking about the potential showdown between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. The hype surrounding their potential bout is unreal. Both the athletes have themselves hyped up the fight by trading insults on twitter. The latest man to join their back and forth banter is UFC president Dana White. According to Foxsports.com, White told The Herd that “Mystic Mac” doesn’t need Mayweather to sell pay per views. He was quoted stating the following:
“I’m going to tell you why Conor McGregor is still doing over a million pay-per-view buys and Floyd isn’t. Because Conor McGregor will fight anybody, anywhere, anytime, including Floyd Mayweather. He absolutely is that guy, Whether Conor fights Floyd or he doesn’t, there’s a line of guys that are ready to fight Conor that Conor will fight that are going to do over a million pay-per-view buys.”
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The major hurdle in making this fight a reality are the contract negotiations. Both the athletes can’t seem to agree on their respective payday’s for the fight. UFC president Dana White had offered both McGregor and Mayweather $25 million to fight. However, ‘Money’ Mayweather had ridiculed the UFC president and had rejected his offer.
The heart of the matter
The retired boxer has often claimed that he will hold supremacy at the negotiation table for a potential fight because of his PPV sales record. He has also often touted himself to be the biggest pay-per-view draw in combat sport history. White has claimed that the Olympic bronze medalist’s drawing ability is not that splendid.
The boxer has faced some of the biggest boxing superstars such as Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, ‘Canelo’ Alarez, etc. The UFC president has alluded that a lot of credit for selling PPV’s should also be given to Mayweather’s opponents. Unlike McGregor, who according to White can sell PPV’s without facing any superstar opponent.
What next?
White has remarked that the Irishman now might be the biggest draw in all of combat sports. Mayweather will surely not refrain himself from responding to White’s comments. He has time and time again criticized and ridiculed the UFC president. It will be riveting to see how the veteran boxer responds to White’s comments.
Sportskeeda’s take
A strong argument can be made that ‘Money’ is not the master of selling PPV’s. Since his retirement fight against Andre Berto managed to sell only about 350,000-500,000 PPV’s. A number of people will agree with White, when he claims that Mayweather’s superstar opponents helped him in selling PPV’s. Whereas, McGregor has managed to sell over a million PPV’s even against internationally lesser known fighters like Nate Diaz.
Though, Mayweather’s ability to sell PPV’s cannot be underestimated. If their fantasy fight does turn into reality, we can surely expect it to break the all time pay-per-view buys record.
