Fantasy Mayweather-McGregor Fight Fueling Floyd's Need for the Spotlight

Some prefer General Hospital. Others lean toward The Young and the Restless.

And still others are riveted by the Days of Our Lives.

But when it comes to combat sports these days, it's all about the Floyd Mayweather Jr. soap opera.

When the decorated boxer began indicating interest in tangling with mixed martial arts supernova Conor McGregor, the Internet was instantly ratcheted up to Code Level: Kardashian.

Entertainment sites reported on the spectacle. Mainstream sites calculated potential revenues.

Sports sites tried to break down how the silliness would look if it actually occurred.

Heck, even the WWE gave it a video-game treatment.

And somewhere in the lap of recently retired decadence, the man known as Money smiled.

Because even though he, McGregor and everyone this side of sanity knows there's precisely zero chance it happens, it's got to be a rush to realize you can tweak the civilized world with a well-timed tweet.

“The rumors that y'all have been hearing,” he told FightHype.com, “(are) the rumors I started.”

And McGregor, who envisions himself an octagonal version of Floyd, played along by tweeting out a would-be fight poster of the two kingpins above a cryptic caption simply reading “MMA Vs Boxing.”

It's a tack that's become emblematic of the 21st century we live in.

Regardless of the specs, an athlete can sit back in a favorite chair, punch up his or her favorite device and fire off a 140-character smart bomb guaranteed to fuel the social media machine for days.

Even when—as with Mayweather engaging a UFC foe—the athlete knows there's nothing of substance.

But beyond simply signaling a new technological world order, it reveals another reality as well.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. cannot survive without a spotlight.

Though he was as convincing as any fighter while claiming to exit the game after a masterful Sept. 12 defeat of Andre Berto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, every one of his recent media appearances has been marked by a nod, a wink and a maddeningly open-ended response when it comes to clarifying a future.

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He told Spike TV's Antonio Tarver in early April that he wasn't specifically considering a ring return, but left the conversation with an "as of right now" cliff-hanger that ensured it would not go away.

Four weeks later, Jim Gray's Showtime inquiries drew Mayweather replies that implied discussions had occurred and insisted a nine-figure payday was possible, but he named no names and offered no timelines.

But that really shouldn't come as a surprise.

Until they’re supplemented with a time, date and venue, the McGregor rumors are just the latest evidence that a constant buzz seems as necessary for Mayweather's survival as shelter, water and air.

And if that’s been his end game all along, the guy’s nothing short of a manipulative genius.

Make no mistake, were it legitimate in nature, the spectacle of a Mayweather-McGregor press conference—let alone an actual altercation—would be a guilty pleasure of gargantuan performances.

Almost to the point where it’s sad that the chatter isn’t more than hot air.

Floyd would embarrass him in a ring. Conor might kill him in a cage. But there'd still be plenty who'd drop 70 bucks to watch them in a pay-per-view tennis match, or one of those ridiculous TV poker games.

Problem is, when every logical indicator shows it’s all nothing more than a 39-year-old millionaire’s plaintive wail for attention, paying it any mind whatsoever feels a lot whole more like stupidity.

And until that changes, deal me out.