Hardly had Irish MMA king, Conor McGregor, completed his stellar return to the octagon beating his rival Donald Cerrone, than another one, undefeated icon Floyd Mayweather, took to Instagram to announce he would take on both McGregor and Russian MMA champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
The placards, which show two pairs looking straight into the camera lens with the year “2020” inscribed below, met a storm of comments, with the McGregor one racking up over 430,000 likes in just one hour.
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Although the bout between Mayweather and McGregor has long been a talking point, after the pair faced off in one of the all-time largest-scale and profit-yielding sporting events on 26 August 2017, there has been no certainty the rematch would ever come to fruition, until now. The teaser, however, was enough to prove otherwise, prompting torrents of enthusiastic comments.
“THE WORLD JUST STOPPED. THERE IS NO BIGGER EVENT ON EARTH 🌍. Who’s ready?” Greg La Rosa, Floyd Mayweather’s bodyguard posted, adding 2020 promises to be “a historic year".
Another suggested that Mayweather would be better off picking Saul Alvarez for “real boxing", while another brought up Canelo:
“Mayweather Canelo 2. would be a much greater and entertaining Fight. It will gross more cash too", he assumed.
“Floyd gone get his a** whopped if it’s UFC", another posted, while a third pointed out that “Mcgregor needs that payday".
“Let’s go champ", a different user cheered.
Although Mayweather announced his retirement from boxing after beating McGregor, a largely UFC star, gossip on a buzzworthy return appeared more or less substantiated after UFC president Dana White sat to talk to Mayweather, who boasts a career record of 50-0, at a Los Angeles event late last year and said they arrived at a handshake deal to see them collaborate at least one more time.
On Saturday night, McGregor destroyed Conald Cerrone, beating his opponent in the first 40 seconds of the bout. Saturday's fight was the Notorious's UFC comeback after a 15-month hiatus.
Dana White said the next fight for McGregor would be a rematch with lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, but responded to Mayweather’s social media activity in the post-fight press conference:
“Mayweather and I have been talking tonight. We’re going to do something with Mayweather. I don’t know yet".
Following his 2017 defeat, “the Notorious” assumed some minor missteps had prevented him from winning, saying a rematch would end in a different outcome. However, Mayweather’s longtime bodyguard and friend, Ray Sadeghi, has busted the view telling MMA Junkie on Friday night that he can’t picture a scenario in which McGregor’s hand will be seen raised.
“No one can outwork Floyd. His offense and his defence and his technique – this man is just made for this", he went on before summing up the pitfalls:
“Floyd is a very calculated man. Especially in this sport, you cannot mess with Floyd. That was planned to just let him have fun and let Conor think he is winning and have fun a little bit and then say, ‘Enough is enough, I’m going to knock you out.’ Which he did".
