Dana White Plans To Strike Mayweather Deal With Conor McGregor Today
The Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather mega-fight is coming along, and a major hurdle in making this fight happen is expected to be cleared soon as UFC President Dana White stated to reporters on Saturday night following the big UFC 211 pay-per-view (PPV) event in Dallas, Texas that he expects to finalize McGregor’s side of the contract on Sunday. That’s the easy part. Now onto the hard part as he has to turn his sights to negotiating with Mayweather’s side in the hopes of striking a deal.
“We’re right there,” White explained (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “I’m expecting an executed agreement tomorrow, and then I’ll start working with Team Mayweather next week.”
This appears to be good news for those who have been wanting to see this fight take place. It’s a showdown that has been years in the making. A top MMA star taking on a top boxing star. Not only do the fighters have elite talent, but they are megastars in their own spectrum of the fight game. However, White did not appear overly confident about the next step in the process.
“Look, we’re just getting this deal done with Conor,” White said. “What do you think the Mayweather side is going to be like, and how much time do you think I’m going to spend on this? We’re going to give it a shot.”
The UFC boss did indicate that his level of commitment to getting a deal done with Mayweather’s side “depends on how ridiculous” the boxer’s demands are, which should not come as a shock to anyone. His nickname is ”Money.” This fight remains one of the biggest running stories in combat sports. White has suggested several times as of late that he won’t be willing to spend more time than is necessary working on negotiating a deal for Mayweather-McGregor, which may end up being an issue. The reason for him not taking a lot of time to make this fight happen is due to it taking away time he could be committing towards UFC goals.
“Yeah [it’s going to be profitable for the UFC], but the question is how profitable,” White said. “You can assume how many buys you’re going to do — there’s no guarantee. Every time you put on a pay-per-view, it’s a roll of the dice. You don’t know what’s going to happen. So, you don’t know. There’s some fights that you do know, and this feels like one of those fights that should do that, but you never know.”
