This past August, UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor made his professional boxing debut and was defeated via tenth round TKO by Floyd Mayweather.
A little over a week before Christmas, a press release was sent out by Showtime saying the super fight was the second highest bought PPV of all-time, right behind Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao.
That press release didn’t impress UFC President Dana White, who disagrees with Showtime and claims it was the highest selling PPV of all-time.
“When we did the Mayweather fight, I watched and took it all in, I just think all these guys, the guys who are promoting boxing today are bad at it,” White said to Yahoo Sports. “I don’t think they do a good job, and I think I could do better. It sounds arrogant, but it’s the truth. I think I could do a better job than these guys do. You know, think about this, and I don’t give a s**t about Showtime’s f**king full-of-s**t press release they put out. It’s the biggest fight ever in combat sports history. The thing did over 6.7 million buys, and if the service didn’t drop, we would have got closer to seven million. It was the biggest event ever. It was the biggest boxing event ever, without a boxer. It was only one boxer involved in the fight.”
UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor wasn’t too happy either and he got into a Twitter scuffle with Showtime Sports Executive Stephen Espinoza.
Sounds like he's upset because we committed the cardinal sin of telling the truth (when we released the accurate total for N. American PPV buys on MayMac).
Strange that telling the truth, in a press release vetted by all parties in advance, is something to be "despised" for. https://t.co/rFxKXz0Bjz
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) January 5, 2018
Shut your weasel mouth. Who gives a fuck about the North American numbers when we are the GLOBAL KINGS you shmuck. WORLDWIDE. No.1! https://t.co/tq5Gj1Os7Y
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) January 5, 2018
LOL…except that it wasn't #1 in worldwide revenues either. https://t.co/QXy9CWtKFy
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) January 5, 2018
White and McGregor speaking out against Showtime comes at an interesting time, especially since the UFC President says the MMA organization is starting a boxing promotion sometime in the near future.
