Floyd Mayweather and Dana White remain chasms apart in terms of the figures required to get the retired boxer to dust off his gloves for a mammoth super-fight against Conor McGregor.
The idea of McGregor vs. Mayweather became slightly less far-fetched this past week when the 49-0 boxer revealed the offer on the table for ‘The Notorious’ before the Irishman hit back with his most personal piece of trash talk to date.
The head of steam behind what would be the greatest combat sports spectacle in history was gathering such traction that UFC president Dana White felt it necessary to publicly address it by naming his price, $25 million per fighter, for the fight to go ahead.
Wow! It could actually happen https://t.co/zPr0KJOl3o
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 13, 2017
The $25 million offer for Mayweather is significantly lower than the guaranteed $100 million that he’d initially set as his minimum figure.
And the former five-division world champion wasted no time in responding to the UFC boss.
“He’s a fucking comedian,” Mayweather told TMZ Sports. “He’s a fucking comedian!”
When asked whether he would accept White’s terms, Mayweather pointed to his newly-purchased Hublot watch, believed to be worth roughly $250,000.
Mayweather’s retirement bout, against Andre Berto, saw him earn a disclosed $32 million while McGregor is believed to have earned $3.5 million for his most recent outing, against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205.
But the fact that McGregor is a much bigger draw than Berto, coupled with it being his boxing debut, would lead one to believe that the pay-per-view interest in the bout could possibly exceed the 4 million buyrate that accompanied the long-anticipated Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight from 2015.
There’s a lot of negotiating to be done yet.
