Leading up to the massive Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor boxing fight becoming official, there were a lot of rumors surrounding the fight and who was in charge of making it happen. With just under a week before Floyd and Conor signed on the dotted line, the LA Times reported that UFC president Dana White was out of the negotiations, replaced by folks from new parent company and talent management agency WME-IMG. Then there were the whispers that the man WME-IMG bought the UFC from, Lorenzo Fertitta was the secret glue holding negotiations together.
While there’s still a lot of tight lips between all the various parties involved in the fight, Conor McGregor’s manager Audie Attar confirmed Lorenzo’s involvement on the latest episode of The MMA Hour.
“Lorenzo Fertitta has been instrumental in a lot of different ways in relation to Conor’s career,” Attar said. “And yes, he was very instrumental in putting all us together and getting us to talking and on the same page when everyone started to see that this was a real viable business proposition. So I have a lot of respect for Lorenzo, I know he’s exited, it’s still something that he’s very passionate about. He cares a lot about the sport and the UFC and cares a lot about Conor. So it was really special for me to see he was interested enough to put all parties together so we could do some good business.”
As for White being pushed out of negotiations? Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe shot that one down.
“Of course [Dana White] was involved, that was just silly,” he said. “It’s silly that someone would just say … that just goes to show you that when somebody doesn’t have the details they’ll just speculate. Dana has been out front of this thing from the word go and he’s done a phenomenal job of getting that side done.”
According to White, there were no negotiations between the McGregor and Mayweather sides until the UFC signed off on a deal to allow Conor to box at the end of May. But with the fight announcement coming a scant few weeks later, some felt his version of events couldn’t be true.
“That’s exactly what happened,” Ellerbe confirmed. “Realistically … how can you approach making a deal when you don’t have your side under control? And Dana has done a tremendous job, and Ari [Emmanuel] has done a tremendous job getting that done.”
Those words were seconded by Showtime Sports head Stephen Espinoza, who was also a guest on The MMA Hour.
“Things actually got down to negotiations when the UFC announced they’d reached an agreement for Conor to participate in the fight,” Espinoza said. “Because that, at least from the Mayweather perspective, was the biggest obstacle: whether or not Conor actually could legally, as in he had permission to fight in a boxing match outside the UFC. So from when that happened to the closing of the deal was actually only two to three weeks.”
“I know we’re all sort of burnt by the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao negotiation, but this was the opposite end of the spectrum. When we got down to brass tacks, the actual negotiations between the two sides really only took about two weeks. Which is striking, remarkable. There’s never been an event this big made so quickly.”
And with the fight going down just over two months from now, it’s a painless bit of spectacle. I think if it had been announced for November or December, the several months of endless hyping would have pushed people past the point where they could find enjoyment in the obvious mismatch. But as a summer diversion featuring two of the best trash talkers in sports? I’ll take it.
