Conor McGregor: UFC career on hold indefinitely, next fight will be against Floyd Mayweather

Conor McGregor has made it very clear that a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. is his No. 1 priority. Anything else, including competing for the UFC, is on the backburner. McGregor hosted a Q&A pay-per-view in England to discuss what his future looks like and made no bones about it that he’s chasing after a boxing match with Mayweather.

It all started when the UFC lightweight champion took to Instagram moments before the question-and-answer session began to make a statement that resonated throughout the combat sports world.

“Heading to do a Q and A in front of 5000 fans! You read that right. That’s more than UFC attendance tonight,” McGregor posted and then followed with dynamite series of f-bomb expletives aimed at just about everyone, including the promotion he’s currently a world champion in. “[Expletive] the UFC. [Expletive] Floyd. [Expletive] boxing. [Expletive] the WWE. [Expletive] Hollywood. And [expletive] you too pay me.”

After setting off the verbal bomb, McGregor’s verbal assault did not let up during his session hosted by Ariel Helwani. The bombastic Irishman stated that he believes his next fight will most certainly be against Mayweather inside of a boxing ring.

“One-hundred percent,” McGregor said. “I believe the next time I step into a combat arena will be through the ropes wearing 10-ounce or eight-ounce gloves. I believe so.”

The fight is still considered a pipe dream to most because of the enormous amount of red tape surrounding it. One of the primary sticking points has been the purse. Mayweather has demanded $100 million while McGregor has done the same. However, Mayweather stated that he would only offer McGregor $15 million, along with the back-end of the pay-per-view buys. Meanwhile, Dana White fired back and stated that he’d offer both fighters $25 million a piece and discuss PPV options.

Obviously, the sides appear to be far from close to finding a level playing field. But McGregor is confident that a deal can be struck and said that negotiations have been ongoing.

“There’s Mayweather Promotions, there’s the UFC, and now the newly formed McGregor Promotions, and we’re all in the mix,” McGregor said, before refuting that he has to answer to anyone. “Nobody is my boss. I know Floyd likes to say Dana [White] is my boss and this and he decides. Hell no. Nobody decides this. If they let people go fight jiu-jitsu tournaments, they can’t stop me going to fight a boxing fight. So obviously it’s smoother to do it all together, but look, everyone’s just got to know their place, and everyone does know their place.”

McGregor does believe that a fight with Mayweather will be the first “billion-dollar” fight in combat sports and obviously would like to command more than a $15M-$25M purse. For the record, when it comes to the A-side, McGregor believes that would be him while Mayweather is the “scared side.”

“He’s the scared side, let’s be honest,” McGregor said. “He’s not trying to have a real fight. He needs rules to protect him. I don’t need rules. So he can say he’s this and he’s that, but in reality, he’s scared [expletive]-less. If I decide to just fight him straight-up – look, [expletive] the UFC, [expletive] MMA, [expletive] boxing, [expletive] sports fighting. Let’s just say we fight. It’d be the easiest fight ever.”

Nevertheless, if the fight were to come to fruition, it would be a boxing match. The Irishman knows he’d enter the fight as a massive underdog but that has given him immense motivation for the fight.

“The sound of laughter and the sound of doubt motivates me so I’m enjoying that,” he said. “I don’t feel that going to fight any of these other UFC bums right now. They need to rise up. Right now, they’re down there. I’ve got this situation where people are truly doubting me, like they doubted me at the very, very beginning, and that’s motivating for me.”

As for his future in the UFC, with plans to fight Mayweather in late 2017 or early 2018, it means that we may not see the UFC lightweight champ in the Octagon for another year.

“I’ll tell you what, for $100 million, I’ll sit for another year,” McGregor said.