Conor McGregor has a big fight coming up on Saturday but also has his eye on a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
McGregor joined “Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show” on Monday and said that he would like to face Mayweather again. He is open to either an MMA fight or boxing rematch against Mayweather, but he made it clear that he will not agree to a modified rules MMA fight.
“If [Mayweather] has the bottle to come over and deal with this, like he said he has, let’s see what happens. I would also like to box him again. Everything is being discussed. Every rule set. If it’s not an MMA bout, then I don’t want to know. It’s either a straight MMA bout or a straight boxing bout. If they come looking for modified rules, I would rather just box the kid again. If you don’t want to deal with it, then don’t deal with it and stop going on like you’re doing,” McGregor told Helwani.
In the meantime, McGregor has a much bigger task ahead. He is set to face Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229 for the lightweight championship. Khabib is 26-0 and may be McGregor’s toughest opponent yet.
After his fight with Khabib, McGregor says he has given consideration to facing Anderson Silva. He also says he would like to complete his trilogy with Nate Diaz at some point.
McGregor and Mayweather fought in Aug. 2017, with Floyd winning by 10th-round TKO. McGregor hung tough for such a challenging fight in his pro boxing debut, though Floyd may have carried the fight into later rounds to give viewers a better show. The fight had 4.3 million pay-per-view buys, second only to Floyd’s fight with Manny Pacquiao. A rematch would probably not sell quite as well, though it would do plenty of buys thanks to the popularity of both fighters. Mayweather said earlier this year that he was training in MMA, but we have our doubts about him stepping into the cage without modified rules.
