UFC president Dana White puts up $50m for Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor to fight
UFC president Dana White said he is prepared to fork out $50m to make a hoped-for fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Conor McGregor take place.
The idea of a meeting between retired boxer Mayweather, who never lost a professional fight, and Irish UFC star McGregor has circulated amongst the fight community since the latter was granted a professional boxing licence in California last year.
Earlier this week the 39-year-old Mayweather, who was unbeaten in his 49 professional fights, said he would come out of retirement to take on McGregor in what would be one of the richest fights in history.
The American said he would want a guaranteed $100m before taking it on with McGregor taking a career-high $15m.
In response UFC president White said he would make a "real offer" of $25m apiece.
"I’ll tell you what Floyd, here’s a real offer," said White.
"I’m the only guy that can actually make the offer and I’m actually making a real offer: We’ll pay you $25m, we’ll pay Conor $25m and then we’ll talk about pay-per-view at a certain number. There’s a real offer.
"To think you're the 'A' side? How are you the 'A' side? The last major fight that you were in [against Manny Pacquiao], you left such a bad taste in everybody's mouth that nobody wants to see you again.
"His last fight did 350,000 pay-per-view buys. Conor did 1.3m and 1.5m. So, I don't understand how you think you're the 'A' side. There's a reason you want this Conor McGregor fight so bad, because you know that's your money fight."
In his penultimate fight against Pacquiao, Mayweather made over $200m after all its pay-per-view sales were counted, while his last fight against the little-known Andre Berto still earned him upwards of $30m.