Seriously, Enough with this Pointless Chatter:
We’ve been preaching this for years, so we apologize for sounding like a broken record, but when ESPN and Sports Illustrated and other media outlets continue to publish garbage, we have to respond. Enough with the mindless, empty chatter about Ronda Rousey calling out Floyd Mayweather, or Conor McGregor doing the same.
Just because they’re saying it, and you’re giving them the space to do it, doesn’t make it worth anything. Wait, this just in —another breathless report about what Rousey said this time! Wow!
This all boils down to a short, simple sentence: Boxing and MMA are different sports.
Let’s say that together one more time.
Boxing and MMA are different sports.
Now, let’s be super clear about what might happen. If McGregor and Mayweather stepped into the Octagon for a mixed martial arts contest, McGregor would win the fight. All he would need to do is bull rush in and take Mayweather down. If the two met in a ring with gloves on for a boxing match, McGregor would be skewered by Mayweather. It’s really that straightforward, folks.
Maybe in some alternate universe, McGregor and Mayweather would agree to some sort of cross-sport fight or series. It would never happen, but in the scope of infinite possibilities, theoretically it could.
That’s opposed to a proposed Mayweather vs. Rousey showdown, which is preposterous. There’s zero chance that this cross-sex rivalry would be sanctioned. This isn’t tennis, folks.
Further, it’s only a “rivalry” because Rousey is using her newly found starpower to continue bringing it up. It’s quite interesting for a sport — management, fighters and fans — that always touts the death of boxing as opposed to its own unstoppable, meteoric rise, that as soon as somebody gets on the mainstream’s radar, boxing is the target.
As for boxing’s death and MMA’s global domination, the UFC simply doesn’t stack up to the eyeballs that tune in and dollars that flow forth for a truly big-time boxing event.
Rousey vs. Mayweather or McGregor choking Mayweather out, whatever the case may be, is all more fuel for the talking heads. That’s it. It might make for fun bar debate, in the same vein as pondering what LeBron James would do as an NFL tight end, but that’s it.
