By Edward Chaykovsky
Dana White, President of the UFC, has no idea what UFC champion Conor McGregor is planning.
White was completely caught off-guard on Wednesday, when it was announced that McGregor had obtained a license to box in the state of California and made a failed attempt to get a boxing license in the state of Nevada.
McGregor wants to secure a fantasy fight with retired former five division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. - who announced his retirement form the sport in September 2015.
There are two problems with McGregor's plan, as White points out.
The first, McGregor is under an exclusive contract with the UFC - and he's unable to compete in any type of non-UFC competition without their involvement or written authorization.
The second problem, no commission in the United States is going to sanction a boxing match between McGregor and Mayweather, who prior to retiring was regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Theoretically the fight can be staged as an exhibition - but if McGregor pulled off the impossible and won - the outcome would not affect Mayweather's official 49-0 record.
While White is looking for answers, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum believes McGregor secured his license to box in order to gain some leverage over the UFC when they negotiate the financial terms for his next fight.
“I have no idea what Conor is doing. Conor’s Conor. He does his thing. But he’s under contract to me. Who knows with this guy? Who knows what he is up to. I just let Conor be Conor. And the other thing is, it’s fun to talk about this fight [with Mayweather] and what might happen, but what commission would let that fight happen? Really, think about that," White told Yahoo Sports.
