Jim Lampley feels Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather was booked on Aug. 26 with ill intentions.
It’s no secret that a bout between McGregor and Mayweather is expected to deliver record-breaking pay-per-view (PPV) numbers. Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White expects the PPV to outsell Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao. That event drew over 4 million buys.
HBO’s lead boxing play-by-play commentator Lampley told Fight Hub TV that the fight was booked to hurt two key HBO events (via Bloody Elbow):
“So, the only reason that the Mayweather/McGregor event is taking place on August 26 is because Kovalev/Ward was this weekend and even moreso because Gennady Golovkin is fighting Canelo Alvarez on September 16, on HBO PPV. And the people who are involved in Mayweather vs. McGregor wanted to blunt that, hurt it, hurt the buyrate. I think by choosing that path, they’ve hurt the buyrate for both events. Because, the buyrate for Mayweather/McGregor would be much larger if it were taking place in November, and the buyrate for Canelo vs. Golovkin obviously would be larger if Mayweather vs. McGregor weren’t taking place on August 26th.”
As far as the actual bout goes, Lampley doesn’t give it much credibility.
“I call it Riggs/King because that’s really what it is. It’s a hybrid event, something of a freak show, and you need to watch it or you think you need to watch it, because your neighbor or all your friends on social media are going to watch it, to see this odd confrontation between a guy from MMA and a boxer. People who do two different things, and they’re going to box, in a boxing ring, with boxing rules. So, does anybody really believe they don’t know who’s going to win?”
