If all parties involved are to be believed, Floyd Mayweather‘s mixed martial arts debut may just be willed into reality.
Mayweather has said that he is serious about taking a fight in the UFC. Most people are still skeptical that he really means it, but that hasn’t stopped the chatter about it from reaching a fever pitch.
Tyron Woodley is planning to train Mayweather for his UFC debut. Numerous fighters, including UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor, want to welcome Mayweather to the Octagon. And UFC president Dana White is now adding his optimism to Mayweather joining the ranks of the UFC, although he sees some bigger hurdles in front of Mayweather for him to be successful than do the boxer and his welterweight champion trainer.
“I’m interested, and obviously he’s interested,” White said in a recent interview with TMZ Sports. “The last time we were both interested, you saw what happened.”
What happened was, against all odds, McGregor somehow managed to make his professional boxing debut against Mayweather, one of the most decorated boxing champions of all time, in what became one of the highest grossing single-day sporting events ever.
“Who knows? But, yeah, possibly Conor. I know Conor wants it,” said White, admitting that a rematch on McGregor’s turf would be a definite possibility if Mayweather eventually steps into the Octagon.
When Could Floyd Mayweather Be Ready for the UFC?
How soon could all this happen? That depends upon who you ask.
Woodley believes that he could have Mayweather fight ready in two-and-a-half to three months.
“If he’s able to evade punches at a fraction of a second, make people look stupid and miss a million times, then he can learn wrestling defense (and to defend kicks),” Woodley said. “In total, maybe two and a half months (to get Floyd ready for a fight).”
Mayweather himself admitted that it would probably take a little bit longer than that for him to be comfortable stepping into the Octagon, but White cast an even longer shadow on what Mayweather could do in the Octagon in a short period of time.
“Obviously, he’s a very talented guy, but as far as the wrestling, nobody is going to learn to wrestle in six to eight weeks. It takes years of wrestling, martial arts, and combat sports training to be a mixed martial artist… years,” White said in his latest interview on the matter.
“He’s a defensive master with his hands. (But) when somebody double-legs you and drops you on your head, he doesn’t have the defense for that.”
As the Mayweather vs. McGregor boxing spectacle proved, it doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to make dollars and cents. So if Mayweather is willing to put in the time and risk his boxing legacy by stepping into the UFC’s Octagon, White is sure to entertain him.
Dana White on Likelihood of Floyd Mayweather Fighting in the UFC
(Video courtesy of TMZSports | Viewing may be limited by broadcast rights restrictions)
