What happens to Conor McGregor if he beats Floyd Mayweather?
If Conor McGregor does the impossible and beats Floyd Mayweather, what happens to him?
Floyd Mayweather is going to beat Conor McGregor when they face each other in a boxing match on Aug. 26. That’s not technically a statement of fact because it is, presumably, an actual competition between two people intent on winning and, of course, anything can happen. But nobody expects a McGregor win.
He’s a mixed martial artist — an extremely good one, too — but he’s not a boxer. More importantly, he’s not a 49-0 boxer who is one of the best to ever take part in the sport. McGregor is going to lose and anybody who thinks otherwise is seriously deluding themselves.
But uh ... well ... what if he doesn’t lose? That presents an interesting question.
The obvious: McGregor can do literally anything he wants
McGregor is suddenly the biggest athlete in all of combat sports. All but one of the UFC’s top-five highest grossing pay-per-views have had McGregor’s name on them, and he’d never need any help to push a card again.
He also has control over whether or not he ever even fights again. He can have a rematch. He can defend his UFC title. He can retire and do nothing but Tweet about how great he is. He can challenge another top-tier boxer for another stupidly massive payday.
McGregor transcends the sport of boxing and mixed martial arts and becomes bigger than Mayweather ever was, regardless of how the win happens and regardless of the fact that Mayweather would still boast a healthy 49-1 record in this scenario.
His UFC future becomes murky at best
We won’t ever know exactly how much Dana White and the UFC are getting by allowing McGregor to lose to Mayweather, but it has to be a lot. McGregor is under contract with the UFC and there are already many suggesting that McGregor will either demand more money from them or pursue a more lucrative career of going superfight to superfight, win or lose.
Regardless, he’s going to get more money. There’s no way out of that for the UFC. McGregor is already distracted by this Mayweather fight, he’s already been stripped of a title because he got bored in one division. He’s already fought a man way too big for him — twice, with a win in one of those fights — and the object of his interests after the Mayweather fight is anybody’s guess.
As a star, he’ll be bigger than the sport, and his whims will be White’s to manage and contain. It doesn’t matter that he’s 28 years old, he’s already made a boatload of cash and, again, can do whatever he wants. The UFC’s paychecks will be much, much smaller than the one he gets from fighting Mayweather.
They’ll fight again
The obvious answer is simple: fight each other a second time. A win for McGregor would do wonders for the marketability of a rematch. A win for Mayweather is what everyone expected and there’s no reason for fight fans to put down another $99 to see them go at it again.
The “Fight of the Century” between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao came on the heels of a 3-2 record in the latter’s prior five fights, and on paper, there was no way Pacquiao could win it. This is one of the most accomplished boxers in the history of the sport, and people still felt he had no chance to beat Mayweather.
And that fight grossed over $600 million.
McGregor vs. Mayweather is poised to make more money than that, and a rematch with an actual storyline that isn’t just these two hyping up a pointless fight would make even more. One hundred dollars may not even be enough for a pay-per-view at that point.