Despite his best efforts, boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather has been forced to admit defeat in his attempts to set up a money-spinning crossover fight with UFC sensation Conor McGregor.
“I tried to make the fight happen between me and Conor McGregor,” Mayweather told FightHype. “We wasn’t able to make the fight happen, so we must move on.”
That doesn’t come as a big surprise since McGregor is currently under contract with the UFC, and it’s almost unthinkable that they’d agree to let ‘The Notorious’ compete in a boxing match with Mayweather.
Besides, while a fight between Mayweather and McGregor would undoubtedly have delivered astronomical PPV numbers, the Irishman is still doing big business in the Octagon.
In fact, he’s already broken the UFC’s pay-per-view buy record twice in 2016, pulling in 1.6 million buys for his first fight with Nate Diaz at UFC 196 in March, and then besting that with 1.7 million for their rematch at UFC 202 in August.
Admittedly, Mayweather has delivered higher numbers than that in the past, though only on three occasions, peaking at a whopping 4.6 million PPV’s for his long-awaited fight with Manny Pacquiao last year, with his match-up against Oscar De La Hoya doing 2.5 million buys back in 2007, and his fight with Canello Alvarez in 2013 doing 2.2 million.
If McGregor keeps winning, and that will be no easy task as he continues to take on tough challenges in multiple talent-rich weight classes, he may yet be able to breach the 2 million barrier under his own steam.
Recent rumors suggest that McGregor’s next fight may well come against UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez at the star-studded UFC 205 event in New York City on November 12th, the promotion’s first ever show in The Big Apple, and if that’s the case then hopes will be high that he’ll break his own PPV record again before the year is over.
