Ever since MMA superstar Conor McGregor landed a $100 million payday in his professional boxing debut against the highest earning boxer in history Floyd “Money” Mayweather, other UFC fighters have been calling out other boxing stars and willing to step into their world for the possible massive payday.
The BMF champion Jorge Masvidal who received a surge in popularity for his 5-second flying knee KO of wrestler Ben Askren at UFC 239 which has been recorded as the fastest Knockout in UFC history, has been calling out the Mexican cash cow of boxing Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Masvidal and Canelo have never crossed paths in real life, but the two fought on the same night November 2, 2019 when Masvidal beat Nate Diaz for the BMF title and Canelo beat Sergey Kovalev for the WBO light heavyweight belt making him a four-division world champion.
During the Canelo fight, DAZN and MGM did something unheard of, they delayed the Canelo vs. Kovalev main event until the UFC 244: Masvidal vs. Diaz event was over.
This rubbed Canelo the wrong way and he felt it was a slap in the face to the fans in the arena who paid to watch him fight.
Masvidal who grew up a huge boxing fan, idolizing ring legends like Roberto Duran, Pernell Whitaker, Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez, has always relied heavily on his boxing ability even in his early street fighting days in Miami.
His boyhood idol Roberto Duran walked him out at UFC 244, and Duran told interviewers that Masvidal reminds him of a younger version of himself.
At first Canelo was standoffish about facing a UFC fighter like Masvidal in the boxing ring. He thought idea was a farce, but recently he changed his tune and would do the fight strictly for business aka monetary purposes.
Canelo was in Beverly Hills shopping at the famous Rodeo Drive when TMZ reporters caught up to him and asked him about fighting Masvidal and the red headed Mexican star said “For business, why not?”
A fight between Canelo and Masvidal would be huge because of the Latino fan bases each carry and also the crossover appeal since both fighters are coming off impressive performances and will have boxing and ufc audiences tuning in.
The main issues would be the TV and Pay-Per-View rights and promotional disputes.
UFC Dana White and Oscar De La Hoya hate each others guts. It ironically all stemmed when Conor McGregor was scheduled to fight Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match back in 2017. De La Hoya who runs Golden Boy promotions dissed the event and even to the point of begging fans on his Twitter account not to purchase the fight because he considered it a joke and disrespectful to boxing fans.
White who always promoted De La Hoya’s boxing events on his social media because he loved the sport and thought they were friends was shocked by the comments made by the boxing promoter.
The feud went back and forth with White publicly agreeing to fight Oscar and calling him a coke head. The two have not reconciled their friendship and are still on bad terms.
Also the networks, UFC has a major deal with ESPN and all their U.S. PPV events are covered by the sports giant, while Canelo has a huge $365 million contract with sports streaming service DAZN.
Dana White and Oscar De La Hoya would first need to squash their beef, and then try to find a way to figure out the broadcast issues before the fight could become a reality, and those chances of happening are a long shot.
