By Victor Salazar
New York - Call it what you want but five division champion Floyd Mayweather (49-0, 26 KO’s) and UFC superstar Conor McGregor (0-0) will be in the boxing ring on August 26rd in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Center. The bout will be the main event of a Showtime pay-per-view.
Many felt the fight would never come to fruition because Conor has no professional boxing experience and he was also contractually tied with the UFC. Not even Showtime Sports Executive Vice President and General Manager, Stephen Espinoza thought it would happen.
“I think it started as a joke and a bit of trash talking,” Espinoza told BoxingScene.com. There was some back and forth that kicked it off. Mayweather was in New York during the McGregor fight and somebody happened to catch him on the street. Floyd said something and then Conor responded and then Dana White responded and Floyd jumped in again.”
But once the ball got rolling, it was hard not to make the fight happen because of the buzz and the money involved.
“It went from some playful trash talking to - yeah I can beat him and yeah I can beat him - to wait a minute, there’s a lot of buzz on this fight and we should try and make it happen,” stated Espinoza.
"By the time we got to a year later, there was so much attention on the fight that we had to make it happen. So when it came to making the fight, it was easy too.”
Conventional wisdom tells you that this will be an easy fight for Floyd but the betters are speaking with their money and a lot of it is coming in on McGregor and that intrigues Espinoza.
“The interesting thing is, some odds are even on some websites. The early betting has been all on Conor. Us in boxing may be bias because we know Floyd and his skill level. But there's entire iceberg out there that truly believes McGregor's going to win.”