Can Conor McGregor fight Floyd Mayweather without the UFC’s ok? The question is almost as silly as whether Ronda Rousey should fight a man. Despite the ridiculousness of it, we take a look.
As Bloody Elbow points out, there is a scenario in which its plausible that McGregor could find his way out of his UFC contract and meet Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match. Of course, the scenario would take the course of a lawsuit. And while there are those that think that’s a pretty feasible scenario, one has to look at the practical issues related to obtaining a boxing license, filing a declaratory judgment for McGregor to get out of his UFC and/or addressing a lawsuit that would inevitably be filed by the UFC for breach of contract as well as its own injunction that would prevent a fight between the two. Then, there’s the legal reason which would stifle all notions about this from happening. But we have about 6 graphs to go…
Clearly the boxing license issue is the least of the worries. One would have to think this should be the easiest of tasks. Rather than wait for a UFC lawsuit, if McGregor and Mayweather are really interested in a fight, they’d probably file a lawsuit against the UFC seeking a declaratory judgment requesting a court to allow McGregor to fight despite his contract with the company. The court of choice would be an interesting one.
A venue in Nevada seems appropriate considering the UFC’s headquarters are in the state. If McGregor decides to seek relief utilizing the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act (“Ali Act”) as suggested by BE, the venue would have to be in federal court in Vegas (the same venue as the current UFC antitrust lawsuit).
So the question is whether McGregor could possibly sue under the Ali Act? It’s likely that while the argument that McGregor (as a licensed boxer) could seek relief under the Ali Act sounds plausible, it’s unlikely that a court would grant McGregor such relief.
Definitely McGregor’s supporters would hope for a broad interpretation of Section 10 of the Ali Act which indicates it a restraint of trade for a coercive contract. However, the coercive contract that is in question and that we try to litigate is the UFC contract, not another boxing contract. And that is the problem.
The purpose and intent of the Ali Act is clearly for boxing. And while there is the possibility of amending the Ali Act to include MMA incubating, the Ali Act does not cover MMA. Any argument that an MMA contract is coercive and thus should be deemed void or voidable under the Ali Act would be dismissed. As stated, attorneys for the UFC would simply argue that the Ali Act does not pertain to MMA and any safe harbor that McGregor might seek to find to nullify his UFC contract should be dismissed.
Payout Perspective:
Clearly, none of us think that Mayweather/McGregor is happening. But, since I was asked about the question, I thought it would be interesting to look at it. While the legal strategy seems sound, in the end, the practicality of a lawsuit and actually prevailing on the merits would be a longshot. If this fight were to actually happen, one would think that the UFC would have to permit this to happen which would mean being, at least, a co-promoter in the event. If you thought a Mayweather/Pacquiao negotiation was tough, think of what Mayweather/McGregor/UFC would be like.
But let’s be honest, the legal process would take years and years before seeing an actual fight. I would see McGregor making amends with the UFC and continuing on as a mixed martial artists before a crossover fight ever happens.
Never gonna happen, can’t blame McTapper for wanting a piece of that money team payroll lol.
This was just a story created by Mayweather (admittedly) in order to get attention from the biggest star in combat sports presently, Conor McGregor. No one was talking about him anymore, so he had to try something to get attention.
McGregor started it by claiming he could win.
Mayweathers friend Peanut was the one who fueled the fire.
Mayweather said it could happen only to watch Dana squirm.
Step in the ring McGregor. Those Diaz pitty pat punches were rocking him.
Mayweather finishes McGregor in 1min.
Hahahaha…top ufc star wants to fight in the money sport of boxing hahahaha….cheapo ufc
http://fighthype.com/news/article24790.html
“McGregor started it by claiming he could win.”
You never tell the truth.
” But the rumors that y’all have been hearing [are] the rumors I started.”
-Floyd “desperate for attention” Mayweather
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2638839-floyd-mayweather-says-he-started-conor-mcgregor-fight-rumors
“Mayweather said it could happen only to watch Dana squirm.”
Na, he said it to get attention. Why would White squirm? He knows the fight couldn’t happen.
“Step in the ring McGregor. Those Diaz pitty pat punches were rocking him.
Mayweather finishes McGregor in 1min.”
Mayweather would lose to women in the Octagon. The same wouldn’t happen to McGregor in the boxing ring. Hahahaha.
McGregor has mentioned Mayweather about 15 different times for about a year now. So yea he started it.
Mayweather saying its possible if McGregor wants to step in the ring.
Why not? Huge payday and the easiest fight he has ever had in the history of fights.
Itll never happen, also the whole “If it was MMA, this would happen” is just mma rhetoric to try to cope with the fact that your guy wouldn’t last a single round with the greatest fighter in the last 30 years.
By the way D. You should be worried that your biggest draw wants a fight in the ring, not the cage. Like a good little boy, he knows which sport runs who, boy.
“McGregor has mentioned Mayweather about 15 different times for about a year now. So yea he started it.”:
” But the rumors that y’all have been hearing [are] the rumors I started.”
The smoking gun.
“Mayweather saying its possible if McGregor wants to step in the ring.
Why not? Huge payday and the easiest fight he has ever had in the history of fights.”
He’s saying that because he is desperate for attention, he knows it would never happen. You even acknowledged this in one of your above rants, it didn’t take you long to reverse course, because you have the attention span of a kid with severe add.
If it were kickboxing or mma, McGregor would put him away in the 1st rd easily.
“By the way D. You should be worried that your biggest draw wants a fight in the ring, not the cage. Like a good little boy, he knows which sport runs who, boy.”
I think you should be worried that you are obsessed with boxing and they can’t even break 500k ppv buys with anyone anymore. Plus, a retired boxer is so desperate for attention, he has to piggy back on McGregor’s name. Hahahaha.
Ufc pay is what made china media interested…china is a fan of cheap labor hahaha
Boxing overpaying fighters is what is driving the sport into the ground. How’s PBC doing?
Lol there goes d resorting to his desperation attempt at pbc like clockwork
Desperation is the state of boxing and their awful ppv buy rates.
Boxing doesn’t need ppv to survive like under financial crisis does. How’s that loan coming along?
Since I didn’t predict this in 2015 or 2016, it won’t happen. McGregor could run out his contract and than we will see.
To keep everyone posted, these were my 2016 predictions. My record with 2015 predictions were close to being spot on with some trickling into 2016.
1. UFC will hold an event in New York at the MSG – ALREADY TRUE
2. Risen Fighting will hold one more event in Japan, than fold – I THINK THIS WILL BE TRUE
3. UFC signs second official sponsor company to help increase fighter pay – NOT YET
4. a) Boxing does not post a PPV with over 1 million buys the – SO FAR SO GOOD
b) UFC posts its first ever 2 million buy rate – WELL UFC 200 SHOULD HAVE
5. A MMA star hosts Saturday Night live – ALREADY TRUE
http://mmapayout.com/2016/01/ufc-195-attendance-gate-and-bonuses/
Lol 198 gate was only 3 million, off 45k tix.
The UFC has 4 events between now and July 7th. PBC alone has 9. HBO has two, CBSSportsNet has 4, Showtime has a couple. The Spanish channels have around 10.
HBO and Showtime have 1 or 2 cards head to head.
PBC has two great shows on the same day.
June 25th Anthony Joshua vs Dominic Breazeale on Showtime and Keith Thurman vs Shawn Porter on CBS in the evening.
Your looking at 25+ televised events. Briggs, Haye and Joshua Parker all fight on the same day and those fights aren’t even being televised that day.
How is the UFC even in the discussion?
Yes 3M off 45k, is AWFUL.
Its funny how D and his alias will claim overseas numbers are worthless and then try to brag that they are fighting in a soccer stadium for dirt cheap prices.
Canelo-Khan $7.4M gate
UFC 198 $3M
Boxing is in need of another big PPV.
I can see it happening. It’s going to be hard for Connor to make it much further at his current drawing power. He can beat Nate, Frankie, and RDA. But they are also extremely bad fights for him. It’s never going to be easy. So his pay will only decrease. He might have 1-2 5 million oay days left. But due to the size of his fan base right now, the appeal to bring in MMA fans. He is easily worth 30 million plus to Floyd. I think Conor would be willing to get embarrassed in boxing for that amount.
The question is what would be in it for the UFC. They would have nothing to gain and big PPV sales to lose.
“Boxing doesn’t need ppv to survive like under financial crisis does. How’s that loan coming along?”
Yes they do, it is what drives the sport.
“Lol 198 gate was only 3 million, off 45k tix.”
Go check out what boxing gates do abroad. They are much more laughable.
“The UFC has 4 events between now and July 7th. PBC alone has 9. HBO has two, CBSSportsNet has 4, Showtime has a couple. The Spanish channels have around 10.
HBO and Showtime have 1 or 2 cards head to head.
PBC has two great shows on the same day.
June 25th Anthony Joshua vs Dominic Breazeale on Showtime and Keith Thurman vs Shawn Porter on CBS in the evening.
Your looking at 25+ televised events. Briggs, Haye and Joshua Parker all fight on the same day and those fights aren’t even being televised that day.
How is the UFC even in the discussion?”
HAHAHAHA!!! Money generated from boxing fights coming up you discussed negative millions, money generated from the UFC fights coming up you during that time, hundreds of millions.
You are right, why is this even a discussion?
“Yes 3M off 45k, is AWFUL.”
You should point that out to all of the boxing abroad with high attendance and even lower gate revenue.
“Its funny how D and his alias will claim overseas numbers are worthless and then try to brag that they are fighting in a soccer stadium for dirt cheap prices.”
Hahaha. I don’t use an alias, that is for you guys. You are also lying again and misinformed. Nothing new. Have you ever said anything that was true before?
“Canelo-Khan $7.4M gate”…460k ppv buys……massive financial loss
UFC 196 $8.1m gate, 1.2-1.5m ppv buys……massive financial windfall
That 3m gate number was a work of fiction. No one released gate numbers for the event. Fight fan just made it up, probably out of frustration that boxing is a complete mess right now and mma is on fire.
Whatever happened to the takeover? Hahahaha
Mayweather said that Mayweather-pacquiao is around 5M ppvs now sold.
5M.
Mayweather also said he was going to box Conor McGregor, also claims that he made 300m for his fight with Pac and he believes he is the greatest fighter ever. He is a nutjob who just makes things up as he goes along. Someone else seems to remind me of that type of behavior here too.
A sold out stadium event in a country experiencing political upheaval and battered economy… not bad.
The UFC continues to dominate.
Thanks Jason. Good stuff.
Not that I am saying 911 was an inside job and the Govt controls the weather.
But what if Mr White and Mr Mayweather have been working together on this as a marketing feasibility test from the get go?
Hahahahaha….highest paid ufc fighter wants to transfer to boxing hahahaha..fanboys write some more comments hahahahaha
Displaying his reebok boxing shoes and boxing gloves….makes the ufc look like a minor league…..
http://fighthype.com/news/article24825.html mcgregor boxing sparring…he could definitley compete with money with his flat foot style hahaha….dw will give him more money just not to embarass the ufc hahahaha
REVISED, MORE ACCURATE ASSESSMENTS OF PREDUCTIONS
“mmaguru on May 16th, 2016 10:45 AM
To keep everyone posted, these were my 2016 predictions. My record with 2015 predictions were close to being spot on with some trickling into 2016.
1. UFC will hold an event in New York at the MSG – NOT YET
2. Risen Fighting will hold one more event in Japan, than fold – NOT YET
3. UFC signs 2nd official sponsor company to help increase fighter pay – NOT YET
4. a) Boxing does not post a PPV with over 1 million buys the – SO FAR SO GOOD
b) UFC posts its first ever 2 million buy rate – NOT YET
5. A MMA star hosts Saturday Night live – ALREADY TRUE”
1.5 correct out of 6 isn’t so bad…I guess
“HAHAHAHA!!! Money generated from boxing fights coming up you discussed negative millions, money generated from the UFC fights coming up you during that time, hundreds of millions.
You are right, why is this even a discussion?”
Huh?!?!
Canelo-Khan gate did $7.4 million, the 34th-highest boxing gate in the state of Nevada.
So the 34th largest boxing gate in the state of Nevada would rank as the #3 all time gate worldwide in the history of UFC?
Yeah, UFC has some catching up to do.
Todd G., nice try.
Mayweather-Berto……financial loss.
Pac-Bradley III….financial loss.
Canelo-Khan……financial loss.
“Canelo-Khan gate did $7.4 million, the 34th-highest boxing gate in the state of Nevada.”
First off, that was at the T Mobile, which is connected with the MGM. The comped tickets are included in the gate. No way that fight brought in 7.4m for the promotion. The ppv only did 460k also which was very below expectations. The purse payouts were over 6m alone. Then there is a ton of other overhead. Either HBO took a hit on this one or the fighters didn’t make much more than their disclosed purses.
“So the 34th largest boxing gate in the state of Nevada would rank as the #3 all time gate worldwide in the history of UFC?”
4th, and that is irrelevant, because that fight wouldn’t rank in the top 30 in total revenue for a UFC. It is just a cherry picked stat that picked out of the sky.
Talk about catching up- boxing hasn’t done a ppv that hit 500k buys in over a year. During that time the UFC did 5 that went over 800k, 3 that went over 1m and they have a few more huge fights lined up, while boxing has nothing but tumble weed on their horizon.
Yeah, boxing is in desperate times.