While there are still doubters out there who think the whole Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor boxing superfight is never going to happen, the two continue to move forward with what McGregor has said may be the first billion dollar fight in history. Earlier this week, UFC president Dana White and McGregor both revealed that they had reached an agreement, leaving White to work something out with Mayweather and his partners at Showtime.
Now Conor McGregor has officially applied for a boxing license with the Nevada State Athletic Commission. That news comes via MMA Junkie, and from what we know thus far it sounds like a formality.
NSAC confirms Conor McGregor has applied for a boxing license in Nevada. Story coming to https://t.co/81ChzC22BM.
— Steven Marrocco (@MMAFightingSM) May 18, 2017
A few months ago, McGregor got together with the NSAC to work out his outstanding fine for the bottle throwing brawl with Nate Diaz back in August of 2016. With that out of the way, there’s nothing blocking the UFC lightweight champion from fighting Mayweather. Certainly not the commission itself, which has made it clear they won’t block the fight.
“That’s certainly a fight that we would approve and have in Vegas,” NSAC head Bob Bennett told USA Today back in February. “Who wouldn’t want to regulate the two best fighters at 150 pounds in their respective unarmed combat fields? Mayweather’s a phenomenal fighter, and so is McGregor. Sure, that’s a fight we would approve.”
This isn’t the first boxing license McGregor has applied for. Late last year he got his California boxing license in what we considered a message to the UFC that he was serious about the Mayweather fight, whether they’d let him do it or not. Later he declared the Mayweather fight the only match he was interested in pursuing, and claimed he had the legal authority to go ahead if the UFC tried to stop him.
“I believe so, with the Ali act I believe I can,” he said, referring to a federal US law put in place to stop promoters from restricting boxers from competing. “But I think it’s smoother with all involved. I think we’re all about good business. I’ve done great business with the UFC, with Dana and everyone. But again, everyone’s gotta know their place. So we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Fortunately it never came to that, with the UFC and Conor signing a deal in the past few days. Now the only thing left is for UFC president Dana White to work out the other side of the match-up, and that means sorting things out with Floyd Mayweather and his PPV partners at Showtime. A big task, but with hundreds of millions of dollars waiting to be made, we expect things to get worked out relatively soon.
