Manny Pacquiao Open to Fight with Conor McGregor; Wants to Be Co-Promoter
Manny Pacquiao announced that he is open to fighting ex-UFC champion Conor McGregor in a statement made Wednesday, but he made clear that he wants to do so as a co-promoter with his new company, Pac Sports and Entertainment.
Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports provided the statement:
Pacquiao, 41, is currently serving a six-year term as a Senator of the Phillippines. He is professional boxing's only eight-division world champion in the sport's history and has won 12 major world titles.
Pacquiao is currently the WBA Super welterweight title holder after defeating Keith Thurman on July 20, 2019, which marks the date of his last fight.
He is 62-7-2 as a professional and has won his last three fights, including a victory over Lucas Matthysse on July 15, 2018 for the WBA regular welterweight title and a win over Adrien Broner on Jan. 19, 2019 to retain that belt.
McGregor, 32, has held UFC's featherweight and lightweight belts. He's 22-4 lifetime and most recently defeated Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone via first-round TKO on Jan. 18, 2020.
McGregor has one professional boxing match to his name, and it was a big one: He lost to the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Aug. 26, 2017 via 10th-round TKO.
A boxing match between two of the most popular fighters this century would undoubtedly attract viewers and bring both men millions of dollars.
Mayweather earned roughly $275 million for the McGregor fight, per Kurt Badenhausen of Forbes, while McGregor took home around $85 million. Other figures included 4.3 million PPV buys, a $55 million gate and over $550 million in revenue.
While a Pacquiao-McGregor fight may not reach those numbers, both boxers are still attractive enough draws to the point where both earning tens of millions of dollars is easily fathomable.
The logistics may be hard to hurdle over as we've seen in the past prior to super fights, but at the very least, we know Pacquiao is interested and willing to get something done.
