By Rick Reeno
MGM Grand, Las Vegas - Former four division world champion Roy Jones Jr. believes a mega-fight pay-per-view between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor is by far the biggest match in combat sports.
While there are rumblings of a 2017 rematch between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao - Jones is confident that a fight with McGregor would generate more revenue and sell more pay-per-views. McGregor, who holds the UFC's lightweight and featherweight titles, is the biggest star in Mixed Martial Arts.
Mayweather's first fight with Pacquiao, which took place last May, generated $600 million in revenue and sold 4.6 million pay-per-views. Because most fans were disappointed with the first fight, the rematch would do considerably less - but even 40% of their previous numbers would still easily make it the biggest cash cow in boxing.
A few years ago, there were talks of Jones facing UFC superstar Anderson Silva in a boxing match on pay-per-view. Both Jones and Silva were completely on board with doing that fight - under normal boxing rules. But, UFC President Dana White would not allow Silva to fight Jones. White, according to several MMA insiders, was afraid the UFC's brand would take a major hit if Jones embarrassed Silva in a boxing match.
If the fight would have went through, and given Silva's status at the time as one of the UFC's biggest stars - Jones is confident that event would have been the biggest and most lucrative of his entire career.
"It was so big when it was talked about back then with me, it would have been the biggest fight of my career by far, I know. It would have been the biggest fight of my career. Dana didn't want to do it, but he's not the owner now. People make decisions usually try to make money for their decisions. These two fighting [Mayweather and McGregor], like me and [Silva] fighting in a boxing match, will not diminish the UFC brand," Jones said.
"That fight with James Toney, when he lost to Randy Couture, that didn't diminish boxing. Of course he's not going to beat Randy Couture with what Randy does. Unless he goes out and learns how to do that and takes time to learn how to fight like that, of course you're not going to beat him. Most of these fighters like Conor train in boxing, so their chances to beat a boxer is better than a boxer's chances who doesn't train at UFC at all, to beat a UFC guy. As we saw, Toney didn't train in the UFC [style fighting] at all. You're not going to beat him like that. I don't see how it would hurt the [UFC] brand."
In the opinion of Jones, a fight between Mayweather and McGregor would easily outperform - in terms of hype and revenue - a rematch between Mayweather and Pacquiao.
"Of course the McGregor fight is a bigger fight, because those UFC fans are die-hard fans. They believe in their guys, which is why I was trying so hard to fight Anderson Silva - because I knew the whole UFC crowd was gonna watch it. They want to see if he's gonna get lucky and land one [punch]. And seeing that you're older, you can get lucky and get him. They are all going to watch, because they are thinking maybe he can do it," Jones said.
"Of course the McGregor fight is bigger than the Pacquiao fight, because the McGregor fans don't believe McGregor can't win - but the Pacquiao fans, the ones who really know boxing, they know that he didn't beat him the first time so what makes them think he will beat him the second time."