FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR remains insistent that he’s serious about launching some sort of MMA career, but doesn’t view a UFC rematch with Conor McGregor as a realistic prospect.
Indeed, that might beg the question as to why Mayweather would bother with the venture at all, but boxing’s former pay-per-view and pound-for-pound kingpin claims he has already begun fitness training for a potential stint in the cage.
Mayweather, 41 since last month, confirmed that he has been in touch with UFC welterweight Tyron Woodley, who told TMZ on Sunday that he is to train ‘Money’ for a prospective toe-dip into the world of mixed martial arts.
“I started training already,” Mayweather told FightHype.com. “Not the physical part – endurance, as far as moving around. So far, I’ve started running…
I’m thinking about fighting in the MMA, I’ve thought about it. I started training in Miami. I look forward to fighting probably by the end of the year. We don’t know. Right now it’s a 50-50 (chance), not a hundred per cent. But we’ve started training.
“Me and Woodley have spoke to each other on numerous occasions. We talked. We said we’re going to start working out, as far as he’s got a great hand game already. I’m going to be working with different guys in the jiu-jitsu world. My wrestling game – I’m going to be working with guys with the wrestling. My kicking game – I’m going to be working with guys for the kicking game. Before I get in the octagon, I’ve got to be well-rounded, all around the board.
“Fighting is not nothing new for me. Fighting barefoot is something new, but fighting is nothing new for me. The thing is this — [if I'm] fighting a guy that has some unbelievable jiu-jitsu skills, unbelievable wrestling skills, but the thing is this: his chances of getting to me… I mean, the percentage of his chances getting to me to lock up with me – he has to come in first. But he may lock up with me, and he may get wrapped up in certain ways. You don’t know how things could play out or how things could happen. With MMA, anything can happen. It’s brutal. It’s very, very brutal.”
Mayweather, who has eight-foot tall glass portraits of both himself and Conor McGregor hanging from the wall of his Beverly Hills mansion, then channeled his inner ‘Notorious’, but maintains an MMA re-run between the pair is a long shot due to their weight disparity.
“I know right now I’m the biggest name in MMA,” he said. “Hands down, I know this. And the second biggest name is Conor McGregor.”
“Conor McGregor: tough, vicious competitor. Of course, just like he feels he got dynamite hands with the four-ounce gloves on, I feel like I got dynamite power with the four-ounce gloves on.
It’d be hard for me and Conor McGregor to fight, because if I was to fight in the MMA, I would have to fight at 145 [pounds]. The weight class I would fight at is 145 [feathwerweight in the UFC]. In MMA it would be totally different, because we don’t have no shoes on, and with four-ounce gloves on – you think I’m fast with eight-ounce gloves on? Imagine how fast I’d be with four-ounce gloves on.
