Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor is rumored to fight WWE superstar and popular YouTuber Jake Paul in a boxing match in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, India.
The event is said to be backed by the Ambani family with a vision to promote sports tourism in India. To make this fight possible, both Conor McGregor and his opponent will get $250 Million each which would be the highest compensation for a combat sports athlete to participate in one single fight.
McGregor also shared the news on his social media after which people are hyped up thinking about the actual possibility of this fight happening in India.
But, despite McGregor’s confirmation, I think some major concerns might stop this highly anticipated event from taking place.
Conor McGregor’s roller-coaster ride in 2024 and lead-up to 2025
Much has happened since Conor McGregor’s initial announcement of his return to the octagon against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 which was scheduled for June 29, 2024. Leading up to the event, both fighters starred as coaches on “The Ultimate Fighter Season 31” raising our hopes to finally see “The Notorious One” back in action.
Unfortunately, the wasn’t on our side as McGregor suffered a toe injury cancelling the bout between him and Michael Chandler resulting in the UFC being forced to replace the main event with a rematch between Light Heavyweight Champion Alex Pereira against former champion Jiri Prochazka.
Following the cancellation of his fight against Chandler, McGregor was visibly livid and he persistently tried to secure another fight in late 2024, but again too many factors were against his return. The UFC president Dana White hinted at McGregor’s return in early 2025, but the fans remained highly skeptical of his claims.
While Conor McGregor was undoubtedly absent from MMA as a fighter, he remained actively involved in combat sports through other endeavors. Notably, he became a partner in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship along with David Feldman and became the promotion’s prime marketer.
Although things weren’t perfect for McGregor, they weren’t bad either. He was actively promoting his businesses, managing his social media presence, and maintaining his usual status of being the most popular personality in the MMA world. But, things turned really worse when McGregor lost a civil rape case against Nikita Hand who had accused him of assault.
McGregor maintains the belief that injustice has been served against him and he will challenge the court’s verdict in order to prove his innocence.
So far, this is what happened with McGregor. We can easily say the year 2024 wasn’t the best for him both personally and professionally. However, something big might be awaiting him in 2025.
Why the UFC will not allow Conor McGregor to fight in a boxing match.
While many people are excited, it’s important to note that the chances of it actually happening are quite low, because there are several highly alarming red flags that could prevent this event from happening.
For years, Conor McGregor has been the cash cow for the UFC and he is also responsible for the promotion’s highest-selling pay-per-view events.
Even when McGregor was on his way to becoming a champion, people flocked to see him fight against some of the top contenders, and after becoming the featherweight and lightweight champion only his presence was enough to fill out an entire arena.
Despite losing his championship belt against Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor’s stardom didn’t suffer that massive decline. His comeback fight against Donald Cerrone was one of the top-selling PPV events for the UFC. Even his two fights against Dustin Poirier which were not championship fights drew more eyes than contemporary champions.
When Conor McGregor announced that he would be making his professional return against Michael Chandler after recovering from a devastating leg injury, the excitement and anticipation around his comeback again re-emerged. People cared that he was making a comeback.
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The point I’m trying to make here is regardless of whether McGregor is a champion or not, he will always remain highly valued within the UFC.
The UFC doesn’t entertain the idea very well of letting their under-contract athletes fight elsewhere. They did it once for McGregor’s fight against Floyd Mayweather, but I believe they would refrain from doing so once again.
The fact that Conor McGregor has two more fights left on his UFC contract makes this fight against Logan Paul or anybody else a highly unlikely scenario.
One compelling argument is that the UFC would gain a significant financial surplus from McGregor’s $250 million purse. We are not sure how much will be the share, but it is safe to assume that they are not going to accept it anyway. I highly doubt that the UFC would allow their poster boy to fight somewhere else just to get a share of the purse.
They are likely to earn way more by selling their own PPV events featuring McGregor against somebody like Max Holloway or Justin Gaethje at MSG or T-Mobile Arena.
Another argument is that the UFC might co-promote this fight alongside McGregor to attract a massive Indian audience. However, the problem here is that this fight is a boxing match, and UFC is an MMA organization. If McGregor and Paul were to fight in an MMA bout under the UFC banner then things would have been different. Since it’s a boxing match, there’s no point in co-promoting this event for the UFC.
The UFC would also prefer that Conor McGregor refrain from fighting someone outside of their promotion. The reason behind this thought is that I think they cannot risk McGregor losing to a fighter who is not associated with the company.
Also Read: Top 05 Reasons Why People Love Watching MMA.
Combat sport is a funny game where anything can happen at any moment. Those who have watched some of Logan Paul’s fights can say that he’s a very decent boxer, and his brother Jake Paul is even better than him. While it’s likely that Conor McGregor would have the upper hand in most situations, the Paul brothers are much younger than him and they might have an advantage in cardio.
Consider the worst-case scenario, Conor McGregor somehow loses to his opponent, then what do you think how the UFC would react? People would mercilessly troll him, and he would face a traumatizing onslaught of memes if he loses to someone like the Paul brothers or even worse KSI!
Forget guys like me and you, Dana White will certainly have a heart attack if Conor McGregor loses to either Jake or Logan Paul! All things he had planned for McGregor’s grand return to the octagon would go in vain, and I think the president’s heart is not strong enough to take that. Dana would do anything necessary to stop Conor McGregor from getting inside the boxing ring.
I believe there are enough reasons to believe that McGregor will not come to India for a boxing fight this year. This is also one of the futile promises that he has been unfortunately getting subject to. Also, there have been no signals from the Ambani family to at least give us hope for this fight.
Dana White has yet to speak about this scenario and it will be interesting to know what he thinks about it. He might not say much and just provide his classic dry answers, but who knows, there might be something cooking behind the door that you and I are unaware of.
Thank You for reading this post. Please leave your comment below and also stay tuned for more exciting posts like this.
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