Dana White compares Aldo vs. McGregor to Mayweather vs. Pacquiao

Dana White isn’t sold on the idea of Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao being the “fight of the century”.

Speaking with the Latin American media Thursday night in Las Vegas, the UFC president said that Mayweather vs. Pacquiao is as big as any other boxing super fight would be today.

“Fight of the century? I mean, seriously? Is this the fight of the century? This is a fight that people wanted to see for a long time, and boxing doesn’t do a lot of these,” White said. “They used to. If you think back to the day when… Imagine if (Mike) Tyson was fighting Lennox Lewis right now. If this was a Tyson Lennox Lewis fight. This fight would be massive. These fights used to happen all the time. But now you don’t see this kind of fights in boxing anymore. I believe if this fight happened in their prime six years ago, it would be this big too.”

The UFC has several title fights scheduled for the upcoming months, but White sees UFC 189’s Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor as their version of Mayweather-Pacquiao. Saturday’s boxing match is expected to generate a $74 million gate at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and Aldo vs. McGregor will take place at the same arena on July 11.

“The difference in MMA is that we always do the fights, the big fights that guys wanna see. Right now, our fight like that is Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo,” he said. “You saw the reception with the world tour that we did. We did seven million dollars… You’re talking about featherweight that did seven million dollars for gate, which will be the biggest gate that we’ve ever done in the United States.

“In North America was 11 million. Think about this: we did an $11 million gate in Toronto, with Georges St-Pierre, and 56,000 people. This one here has 16,000 people and a $7 million gate, so it’s a pretty big fight.”

“Listen, it’s definitely a massive fight. Everybody is talking about how this thing sold out,” he continued. “This thing isn’t sold out. There’s still a lot of tickets left for this thing in secondary market. The boxing guys are so greedy… Here we go again, man. Room rates are dropping all over the place for the city right now, they are dropping room rates and tickets haven’t been sold. It’s not what it appears to be, but it will be massive on pay-per-view, and I think it’s going to be a good fight.”

Dana White isn’t sold on the idea of Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao being the “fight of the century”.

Speaking with the Latin American media Thursday night in Las Vegas, the UFC president said that Mayweather vs. Pacquiao is as big as any other boxing super fight would be today.

“Fight of the century? I mean, seriously? Is this the fight of the century? This is a fight that people wanted to see for a long time, and boxing doesn’t do a lot of these,” White said. “They used to. If you think back to the day when… Imagine if (Mike) Tyson was fighting Lennox Lewis right now. If this was a Tyson Lennox Lewis fight. This fight would be massive. These fights used to happen all the time. But now you don’t see this kind of fights in boxing anymore. I believe if this fight happened in their prime six years ago, it would be this big too.”

The UFC has several title fights scheduled for the upcoming months, but White sees UFC 189’s Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor as their version of Mayweather-Pacquiao. Saturday’s boxing match is expected to generate a $74 million gate at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and Aldo vs. McGregor will take place at the same arena on July 11.

“The difference in MMA is that we always do the fights, the big fights that guys wanna see. Right now, our fight like that is Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo,” he said. “You saw the reception with the world tour that we did. We did seven million dollars… You’re talking about featherweight that did seven million dollars for gate, which will be the biggest gate that we’ve ever done in the United States.

“In North America was 11 million. Think about this: we did an $11 million gate in Toronto, with Georges St-Pierre, and 56,000 people. This one here has 16,000 people and a $7 million gate, so it’s a pretty big fight.”

“Listen, it’s definitely a massive fight. Everybody is talking about how this thing sold out,” he continued. “This thing isn’t sold out. There’s still a lot of tickets left for this thing in secondary market. The boxing guys are so greedy… Here we go again, man. Room rates are dropping all over the place for the city right now, they are dropping room rates and tickets haven’t been sold. It’s not what it appears to be, but it will be massive on pay-per-view, and I think it’s going to be a good fight.”