After months of specualtion and negotiations it’s official at last – Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Jr will compete in a blockbuster boxing match in Las Vegas on August 26th.
Both fighters confirmed the fight is on via their social media accounts today, while Dana White has revealed that they will be competing at 154lbs.
The pay-per-view will be run via Showtime, with Mayweather Promotions taking the lead role as promoter for a fight card that will be comprised purely of boxing matches.
Given that McGregor is by far the biggest MMA star in the world and Mayweather is the king of pay-per-view, the fight is almost certainly set to be one of the biggest ever in the history of combat sports.
However, most pundits believe that McGregor doesn’t stand a chance against Mayweather in the ring, given that he’ll be facing one of the greatest ever proponents of ‘the sweet science’, a 49-0 legend with an almost impenetrable defense, despite having never had a professional boxing bout himself.
In all fairness, most of those same pundits would also acknowledge that if the roles were reversed and Mayweather was to step into the Octagon under MMA rules, then he wouldn’t stand a chance either.
As such it’s no surprise that Mayweather is a minus-1000 favorite to emerge victorious on August 26th, while McGregor is plus-650 to win.
As a two-division UFC champion with unshakeable self-belief, McGregor won’t be over-awed by the occasion though, and though he’ll no doubt be talking up his chances of knocking out Mayweather, he’ll know that even if he can just survive until the final bell then he’ll have earned a moral victory.
Realistically though, McGregor’s best chance to shine will be in the pre-fight build-up as he’ll be in his element there and should have the world clamoring to see this historic showdown in just over two months time.
