If UFC President Dana White is anything, it is a promoter. No matter what the fight or who is competing in it, White has the ability to make it seem like a huge event. While there doesn’t seem to be a big reason to push the upcoming Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather fight, White is in full promotional mode. He is pushing the idea of the big fight between the best boxer of his era against the top MMA fighter working right now as the biggest battle of all time. In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, White has called the August fight the biggest there will be and said that it will be bigger than the Manny Pacquiao fight.
Mayweather vs. Pacquiao
There have been huge fights in boxing history. One just needs to look at fights between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman or Marvin Haggler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard to see how big boxing matches can help elevate the sport in even the eyes of non-boxing fans. However, thanks to the advent of pay-per-view, boxing hit new heights and the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight was one of the biggest of all time.
The Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight took place on May 2, 2015, in Las Vegas. Before the fight, Mayweather was 47-0 and Pacquiao was 57-5-2. The fight saw the Unified WBA, WBC, WBO, and The Ring welterweight titles on the line. Mayweather won a 12-round unanimous decision.
The fight was the highest grossing pay-per-view in history with $410 million in revenue and 4.6 million purchases.
Predictions for Mayweather vs. McGregor
Dana White pointed out that the current projections by bookies for the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight are putting it around 4.9 million buys, which would surpass the Manny Pacquiao fight by 300,000 buys.
While White admits that Manny is a huge star and that fight was very big, he claims that Conor McGregor is more popular in Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Canada and that will make this a bigger fight than the Pacquiao fight.
One thing that holds this fight down is that people were watching Floyd Mayweather fight Manny Pacquiao to see which boxer was the best in the world.
Either man could have won and Mayweather came out on top. However, almost no one is giving Conor McGregor a chance to beat Mayweather in a boxing ring. According to Dana White, the fight will be better than detractors expect. He said that Conor will go after Mayweather from the start and force Floyd to fight defensively. White said that anything can happen and McGregor is going to try to win by knockout.