For Conor McGregor, UFC 209 may be a pay-per-view (PPV) to pay close attention to.
The event goes down next Saturday night (March 4) inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main event of the card will be a welterweight title bout between champion Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson. It’ll be a rematch from their UFC 205 tilt back in Nov. 2016.
That isn’t the match-up “Notorious” is likely to lose sleep over.
The co-main event, however, may be a different story. No. 1 ranked Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov will go one-on-one with No. 2 ranked Tony Ferguson. The winner of that fight will capture the interim UFC 155-pound gold.
McGregor is the current UFC lightweight champion. He’s likely going to put his title on the line in a unification bout against the winner of Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson.
Lately, the world of sports and the mainstream media have been hyping up a potential boxing bout between McGregor and future boxing Hall of Famer Floyd Mayweather. Those talks were more powerful than ever when a report surfaced claiming that the two had agreed to financial terms.
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith claimed “Money” told him a bout with McGregor was, “very, very close” to becoming a reality. Mayweather would go on to say that he was “happily retired.” McGregor took credit for Mayweather’s decision to stay retired.
Renowned boxing trainer Freddie Roach chimed in and said Mayweather also told him a boxing match with “Notorious” would happen. One man who doesn’t see the fight materializing anytime soon is UFC President Dana White.
White told TMZ Sports that McGregor is likely to meet “The Eagle” or “El Cucuy” next:
“I don’t know where we’re at (with the Mayweather fight). We’re nowhere with it, yeah we’re nowhere. And Conor wouldn’t train with anybody (responding to Mayweather telling Freddie Roach to train McGregor). Conor’s got his own team and his own crew. I expect Conor’s next fight to be in the UFC in mixed martial arts and (against) the winner of Khabib and Ferguson.”
