UFC president Dana White has become one of the most successful fight promoters of the modern era. However, his latest plan may be too ambitious, as he is putting $25 million on the table to coax Floyd "Money" Mayweather out of retirement and box with UFC champion Conor McGregor.
White said he would do things differently compared to how boxing promoters handled Mayweather's last fight. That fight was against fellow boxing legend Manny Pacquiao, but was not as fulfilling as fans thought it would be. White claims that he will build a stacked fight card around the Mayweather vs. McGregor bout, including a title match as the co-main event of the evening, according to MMA Fighting.
White is also offering $25 million for McGregor to fight, meaning the purse for that fight alone will total $50 million. White claimed that he would be disappointed in the event that the fight will go through, but only do less than 2 million buys. This is especially considering that both fighters have also been offered a cut of the pay-per-view sales of the event.
White defended his decision to offer such large amounts of money to McGregor and Mayweather. Most of his big budget events have worked in his favor after all. "When the show was over, people would leave at least, whether they went to the event or bought it on pay-per-view, feeling like they got their money's worth," he said in an interview with "The Herd," as cited by Fox Sports.
It comes as no surprise that White is willing to exorbitant amounts of money to both fighters in order to ply his trade in the UFC. $25 million is more money than many people make in their whole lives. In spite of this, it seems like it may take more to bring the multi-division boxing world champion out of his relatively recent retirement.
Mayweather claims that he is a bigger star in combat sports compared to McGregor and therefore should be paid more. He has called white a "f*cking comedian" for making the offer and added that he wants no less than $100 million to make the fight happen.
Mayweather took even more shots at White, reminiscing on how the latter used to be when he was still an up and coming promoter. "I like Dana White, I don't have anything against him, but I can remember Dana White used to hang around me and Jeff Mayweather and carry my bags," Mayweather told Fight Hype.
Listen to Mayweather's controversial comments on White in the video below: