Dana White Says When He’ll Walk Away From Mayweather vs. McGregor

Just one month ago, UFC president Dana White came out and said that he was going to focus on making the super fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather happen. As for the reason, he wants to “do this for Conor” in consideration of the many times McGregor has stepped up to the plate and help out the promotion. However, as seen in the past, just because White says something, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

The boss of the biggest MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) promotion in the world spoke with Colin Cowherd on Tuesday afternoon on The Herd to talk about various topics including the difficulties that exist in making the super fight happen. In his words, the fight is nowhere close to being set, and that eventually, he could wash his hands of everything.

“It’s not getting close at all (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). I knew that this thing was gonna be a nightmare to get done, if it can even be done. We’ll find out. Obviously, both guys want to fight each other, but what’s the deal? Can the deal be done? That’s the question.

“It’s not even Mayweather. It’s not even Mayweather. It’s definitely both sides. It’s not just Mayweather, it’s both sides of this thing are gonna be hard to get done. And absolutely, there’s gonna come a point where I’m done [clears his hands]. This isn’t what I do. This isn’t my business and I’m definitely gonna walk away.”

All of the things that go into making the fight of this scale are piling up and Mayweather has been a notoriously tough negotiator. Even with Mayweather’s insistence that he’s “the A-side” and the specifics of a purse split being hotly contested, the fight will still require a substantial amount of work. Putting that aside and topping all of that, the biggest current star in boxing, Canelo Alvarez, just announced a match against Gennady Golovkin for this September, which is a date that was being targeted for a potential Mayweather-McGregor bout. Obviously, that is a problem. Alvarez vs. Golovkin is the biggest boxing match in several years and basically ensures that McGregor-Mayweather won’t be fighting until the end of the year.

There are so many roadblocks still standing in the way of the fight being made. It’s fair to ask if White’s intention to “walk away” is coming sooner than predicted. However, White insists that he still wants to make the fight happen as a boon to McGregor. The UFC President also insists that “the right deal” must be struck. As to why it has to be the right deal, it’s pretty simple. It really doesn’t matter to him whether the fight happens or not.

“Listen, if it doesn’t work for me personally – either way, it doesn’t matter to me. I know that these two guys want to fight. I’ve said many times I respect Conor, and I’d like to do this fight for him, but it’s got to be the right deal. We have to get the right deal done, or it’s not going to happen, because, at the end of the day, this isn’t what I do, the UFC is what I do, and I should be focusing on that, and not a boxing match that – obviously, a lot of people want to see it, there’s a lot of interest in it, but it’s not really what I do.”