How the internet created Mayweather versus McGregor

Against all odds, one of the most lucrative fights in combat sports history has been made official, with Yahoo Sports reporting on Thursday that UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will step into a boxing ring to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. on August 27 (AEST) in Las Vegas.

First things first, McGregor cannot and will not beat Mayweather in a boxing match. Just like Buddy Franklin can’t dunk on Steph Curry and Tom Brady can’t whoop Novak Djokovic in a tennis match, a UFC fighter with a 0-0 boxing record cannot beat this generation’s finest prize fighter.

Even since ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ boxed circles around Diego Corrales in a 2001 fight so flawless that Bob Arum told the press that the sport’s hottest rising star was “better than Sugar Ray Leonard”, Mayweather has made a habit of treating the world’s best pro boxers like rank amateurs.

Arturo Gatti couldn’t land a telling blow on Mayweather’s chin. Neither could Oscar De La Hoya, Juan Manuel Marquez, Shane Mosley, Canelo Alvarez or Manny Pacquiao.

These are boxers who have won an alphabet soup of major titles and traded spots on The Ring’s vaunted pound-for-pound rankings list, and they didn’t stand a chance.

If you think a novice, even one with a proven track record in another sport, is the man to do what the pros couldn’t, well, I suggest you take another sip of that Kool-Aid.

This boxing-versus-MMA ‘super fight’ is a joke, but it’s one that was crafted on social media, 140 characters at a time.

To truly comprehend how this fight became a reality, you have to behold what the public is saying in their snappy, bite-sized comments online.

Just like Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, or anyone else who’s name is always at the tip of someone’s tongue, McGregor understands that when we’re talking about him online, he’s winning the war of attention. And in his industry, that leads to pay-per-view records and seven-figure gates.

Last year, when the Irishman announced a fake retirement as a negotiation tactic to milk a little more money from the multi-billion-dollar UFC machine, the post was shared over 159,000 times – nabbing over 30,000 more retweets than Kobe Bryant’s legitimate retirement post in 2015.

With a few strokes of a keypad and the click of a button, McGregor can set social media on fire. The silver-tongued Irishman did it again yesterday. At the time of this writing, McGregor’s sarcastic fight announcement post with himself alongside Floyd Mayweather Sr. has over 200,000 shares and growing.

Just like every other Internet trend, though, it isn’t just the initial post that counts. It’s the endless parade of tweets, memes, and jokes that keep the conversation flowing for days to come.

Mayweather versus McGregor started on social media, and it grew legs with every post and article that it spawned.

“This wasn’t my idea,” UFC president Dana White said on Thursday when a fan accused him of promoting a blatant cash grab during a Facebook Live stream.

“Every fan and every media outlet on earth wanted this fight. And Conor and Floyd wanted this fight.”

He’s not wrong.

With every snarky tweet and click-bait post, the internet created enough interest in a cross-sport fight to make WME-IMG, the UFC’s ownership group, throw its biggest star to the wolves for a slice of the estimated $800 million this fight could generate.

So when the bell sounds on August 27 (AEST) and McGregor begins helplessly swinging at air for 36 minutes, just remember, we all helped create this.