Mayweather and Pacquiao getting into MMA and stepping into a UFC cage may seem farcical but solid reports in recent times suggest at least one of them is seriously considering it.
Anyone with half a brain will tell you the two sports, boxing and MMA, are like apples and oranges.
It seems like we’ve been over this time and time again but like most things in life – it comes down to money.
Boxing and MMA in reality are both thriving at the moment with plenty of room for each to grow separately.
Since the whole Mayweather vs McGregor event last August, we’ve seen endless amounts of MMA fighters wanting to get into professional boxing and also the other way around – with some of boxing’s topic warriors extending curiosity about getting into the UFC cage.
Seemingly they are allured by bigger pay days on the opposite side of the fence, so to speak. However the grass is not always greener on the other side.
To compound this issue further, add to it the best and biggest sports promoter on Earth, a fella from Boston called Dana White, announcing that he’s getting into the boxing business in 2018 – and you’ve got one hell of a ram-shackle s*** show at the moment – in terms of both sports crossing over (not organically which would be fine) more than ever before.
But is this really a bad thing? After all, a fight is a fight, right?
Wrong – to a degree l would argue.
Folks like myself and friends of mine do enjoy both sports but I’m aware we would be in a small number of people who do.
The two sports have their own distinctive traits and have a place individually on their own, on the whole, when looking at the big picture from a casual sports fan standpoint.
A person whom without’s interest, would render both sports much smaller than what they are today.
As neither would be able to generate the revenue sufficient to stage the big fights that we all love every year, to attract the masses to watch boxing and MMA with those super fights that roll around every year.
Those huge events (love them or hate them) are what allow both sports to exist as they are at the highest level today and to continue to grow.
Having said that, on the other hand, it’s great in one way to see people like White wanting to get into boxing promotion.
It shows that boxing is sexy again. Enough so to entice such powerful figures with even more powerful friends into the sweet science.
But not your standard wealthy guys in the past who’ve blown millions (and more) – and as one hard-working and fairly smart female promoter in the US noted once:
“Have more money than brains.”
No, no. Dana White knows the fight business alright, and he loves to win.
It’s not just some would-be blow in trying to enter boxing due to the outside sexy appeal of the business. He also started out in the boxing game. He knows the grind. He knows the characters. He knows the score.
But where it gets a little too nutty, even for this 29-year-old from Ireland, who’s partial to a little nuttiness from time to time, as are most who find themselves working in the fight game on a daily business in some shape or form (you’d have to be really) – is when you hear that Floyd Mayweather wants to fight in the UFC.
Total and utter nonsense. Garbage. He’s way, way too smart a guy to basically get smashed to pieces in a sport he’s never done before.
He’s a 40 year old man for God’s sake. To learn the ground game alone of MMA would take years. It’s simply publicity in my view.
I wouldn’t be surprised if him and Dana White started working together on boxing events promotion-wise in the new year.
As regards him fighting in MMA, unless the UFC somehow gave him an opponent so terrible, so devoid of ability to take him to the ground and essentially out of the only place where he’d stand any chance (on his feet), forget about it.
Nah, no way. Even thinking about it for more than two seconds is a joke my instincts tell me. But hey, who thought Mayweather vs McGregor would happen and it did?
In the words of Floyd Mayweather senior on why that took place at the time:
“Man, people like to see crazy things nowadays.”
Mayweather fighting in MMA seems far, far crazier to me though. Anyway, enough of my guff – Tony Bellew says it all here:
If Floyd or Manny get into a cage and compete with any MMA guy I’ll be truly amazed! I can’t stress to people how different these sports are! It’s like saying rugby and football are similar because there both played with a ball! Just stick to what you know eh ??
— Tony Bellew (@TonyBellew) December 20, 2017
