Even though Floyd Mayweather himself once wrote off his mixed martial arts chatter as bluster, the situation has heated up recently with Mayweather and UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley talking about training for a potential MMA debut for the undefeated boxing legend.
After Woodley recently commented publicly that he and Mayweather had talked about training together in Las Vegas, many disregarded him, particularly when he said that he could have Mayweather fight-ready in two 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).”
Surely it was merely just a couple of guys talking with as much bluster when they happened to run into each other during NBA All-Star Weekend. But then Mayweather was caught on camera by TMZ Sports, in which he responded to Woodley’s comments, he gave a rather pointed interview with lots of serious-sounding specifics about a potential trip to the UFC Octagon.
“I’m going to start (training) soon,” Mayweather said. “(Woodley and I) have been texting back and forth. We talked a couple times so we’re going to start working out real soon.
“I’ll probably need a little bit longer (than three months),” he continued. “A little bit longer. Even if it takes six to eight months, whatever it takes, we just want to make sure everything is done correctly, and everything is done the right way.”
Now, Woodley, during the latest episode of The Hollywood Beatdown, is talking about Mayweather again, adding more input to the seriousness of the boxer’s desire to take a UFC fight.
“(If Mayweather can) eliminate all different martial arts, he forces an opponent to fight a stand-up fight with him, what fighter in the UFC is going to outbox Floyd?” said Woodley.
“All I have to do is teach him how to negate the wrestling, teach him how to negate the striking. At the beginning of every round, how does the fight start? Standing up. I have to teach him how to keep it there,” he continued.
“I think three or four months training just to make people go out there and fight a stand-up fight, six to eight months if he wants to go out there and start throwing kicks and takedowns.”
Even if Mayweather and Woodley train together, that’s not a lock that the undefeated boxer will step in the Octagon, but just as nearly everyone wrote off Mayweather vs. McGregor, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that Mayweather might actually believe that he can step in the Octagon and compete, especially if the money thrown his way makes it worth his while.
(Courtesy of TMZSports)
