Midnight Mania! Mayweather Says 50/50 Chance He Makes His MMA Debut in 2018

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

We truly live in a world where the truth is stranger, and much funnier, than fiction.

For instance, I couldn’t write a line this funny, from Floyd Mayweather. Via MMAJunkie.com:

“I started training already,” Mayweather said. “Not the physical part – endurance, as far as moving around. So far, I’ve started running. …

So… he’s started running. That’s a far cry from training “the MMA”, my man. I’m willing to make a Mayweather-sized bet that, put on the spot, Floyd couldn’t tell you what the letters in MMA stand for.

Does it get better? It gets better.

“I’m thinking about fighting in the MMA, I’ve thought about it. … I started training in Miami. I look forward to fighting probably by the end of the year. We don’t know. Right now it’s a 50-50 (chance), not a hundred percent. But we’ve started training.”

You mean you’ve started running.

However, as ridiculous as this whole scenario is, we have to remember that McGregor boxing Mayweather was pretty nearly as ridiculous, and that actually happened. I wrote maybe fifty articles on it, and you, y’all, the readers, lapped it up. It got millions of clicks, and made hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s no wonder then that UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley has offered to train Mayweather for his MMA debut.

“Me and Woodley have spoke to each other on numerous occasions,” Mayweather said. “We talked. We said we’re going to start working out, as far as he’s got a great hand game already. I’m going to be working with different guys in the jiu-jitsu world. My wrestling game, I’m going to be working with guys with the wrestling. My kicking game, I’m going to be working with guys for the kicking game. Before I get in the octagon, I’ve got to be well rounded, all around the board.”

Besides sounding like my dad who is always just about to start an exercise program (sorry Dad), Mayweather sounds like someone who just hasn’t done any of this, ever, and so doesn’t understand how difficult it is going to be. At least McGregor boxed as part of his MMA training. Floyd has never needed to wrestle or learn submissions to be a boxer.

“Fighting is not nothing new for me,” he said. “Fighting barefoot is something new, but fighting is nothing new for me. The thing is this — (say I’m) fighting a guy that has some unbelievable jiu-jitsu skills, unbelievable wrestling skills, but the thing is this: His chances of getting to me, I mean, the percentage of his chances getting to me to lock up with me, he has to come in first. But he may lock up with me, and he may get wrapped up in certain ways. You don’t know how things could play out or how things could happen.

“With MMA, anything can happen. It’s brutal. It’s very, very brutal.”

My favorite part of that above transcript is just how little he says. Perhaps he should check the record on pro boxers getting into the cage with minimal training. But he may be right about the following:

“I know right now I’m the biggest name in MMA,” Mayweather said. “Hands down, I know this. And the second biggest name is Conor McGregor.”

See, there is money to be made here, and Floyd might just decide getting his ass kicked in the gym every single day for half a year, then in a cage in front of paying millions, is worth that sweet sweet cash.

However, despite the fact that this cash will only happen just once against a credible opponent, against exactly one UFC opponent in Conor McGregor, Mayweather is being coy about this all leading up to a McGregor rematch. He says he wants to fight at featherweight instead, perhaps a game to try to force McGregor to fight at a weight it is very draining for him to make.

“I can’t say right now,” Mayweather said. “I can’t really say how things are going to play out. I’m a numbers man. I’m all about the numbers.”

“Conor McGregor, tough, vicious competitor,” he continued. “Of course, just like he feels he got dynamite hands with the 4-ounce gloves on, I feel like I got dynamite power with the 4-ounce gloves on.”

“It’d be hard for me and Conor McGregor to fight, because if I was to fight in the MMA, I would have to fight at 145 (pounds),” Mayweather said. “The weight class I would fight at is 145. … In MMA it would be totally different, because we don’t have no shoes on, and with 4-ounce gloves on, you think I’m fast with 8-ounce gloves on, imagine how fast I’d be with 4-ounce gloves on.”

I can only imagine.

For now.

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Insomnia

This is the world’s most amazing sport, hands down bar none.

The Black Beast

This was fun to watch in slow motion

I hope this guy was okay

Jon Jones likes weaponized violence as well as the unarmed kind.

How about you try some REAL self defense training, Jonny Bones?

Truth

I’m not sure this is real, but if so, not cool from the ref, or the fighter who takes a cheap shot. Derrick Lewis, as always, is an Instagram must-follow.

The GOAT, Artem Lobov

Joe Rogan and I both hate-love these. I see them as telling tokens of our world, one where ‘the market’ is just credulous people who will always fall for charlatans because they so badly want to believe.

Anthony Johnson lifting is a scary thing.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk getting down

This spectacular suplex KO was ruled a DQ the next day by what seems to be some very shady ONE FC decision making.

Here’s what the ONE fearless leader had to say as explanation:

And here’s why it doesn’t quite make sense…

This DQ was the most unnecessary DQ of all time. He was gifted the win.

Garry Tonon has bars as well as hands

John Danaher recaps what went into Garry Tonon’s superb MMA win this weekend

The event was fun

Comedian Hannibal Buress sponsored Invicta FC 28, which was by all accounts a bloody and fun event.

Case in point:

Cory Sandhagen spars with his dog

Leslie Smith explains the goals of Project Spearhead, the fighter-led attempt to organize and figure out if fighters are legally employees, and if so, to form a fighter’s union.

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Slips, Rips, KO Clips

This guy has fantastic knees

Wild sequence indeed. MMA is gloriously unpredictable

You don’t see this too often

Grappling has so many forms.

Sumo, which is also grappling

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Good Reads

As someone whose whole job is aggregating social media content, I found this an interesting read, even if I disagreed on Darren Till.

• Cub Swanson has been thrown into some bizarre matchups in his recent career, but the Edgar rematch might be the strangest. He explains, though, that it came with more money.
• Russian MMA fighters apparently get mixed up in kidnapping and torture sometimes on the side

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Random Land

Promethean sacrifice

Agility

Oh yeah. Worth the watch.

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