Floyd Mayweather Jr. is reportedly ‘training like a maniac’ in the gym and is considering making a dramatic U-turn on his retirement plans That is according to an article published by TMZ Sports. The report claims that ‘people close t…
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is reportedly ‘training like a maniac’ in the gym and is considering making a dramatic U-turn on his retirement plans That is according to an article published by TMZ Sports. The report claims that ‘people close to Mayweather’ believe that money will make a return to the ring at some point next year: […]
If so, the Showtime executive labelled a “weasel” by Conor McGregor is on the same page and is open to the idea of “more than a one off” Stephen Espinoza took a torrent of abuse from the Irishman during the Mayweather vs. McGregor world tour. Despite being labelled as everything from a “fu*king weasel” and […]
If so, the Showtime executive labelled a “weasel” by Conor McGregor is on the same page and is open to the idea of “more than a one off” Stephen Espinoza took a torrent of abuse from the Irishman during the Mayweather vs. McGregor world tour. Despite being labelled as everything from a “fu*king weasel” and […]
Showtime and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) may have not seen the last of each other. The two organizations worked together to make Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor a reality. Despite some differences between Showtime Sports executive vice president Stephen Espinoza and UFC President Dana White, the two ultimately had a smoother experience than expected. […]
Showtime and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) may have not seen the last of each other. The two organizations worked together to make Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor a reality. Despite some differences between Showtime Sports executive vice president Stephen Espinoza and UFC President Dana White, the two ultimately had a smoother experience than expected. […]
Conor McGregor didn’t just reserve his trash talk for Floyd Mayweather during the May-Mac World Tour to promote last month’s (Sat. August 26, 2017) combat sports mega-event. “The Notorious One” took aim at “Money’s” body guards, Floyd Mayweather Sr., and Showtime Sports Executive Stephen Espinoza, who got the worst of it when the Irishman labelled […]
Conor McGregor didn’t just reserve his trash talk for Floyd Mayweather during the May-Mac World Tour to promote last month’s (Sat. August 26, 2017) combat sports mega-event.
“The Notorious One” took aim at “Money’s” body guards, Floyd Mayweather Sr., and Showtime Sports Executive Stephen Espinoza, who got the worst of it when the Irishman labelled him a ‘f*cking weasel’ for supposedly cutting his microphone off on the first leg of the tour.
Now that all is said and done, and Mayweather now owns a 10th round TKO win over McGregor in boxing competition, Espinoza recently joined The MMA Hour to talk about his brief run-in with the UFC lightweight champ on the World Tour. Espinoza admitted that McGregor’s comments towards him irked him a bit, but said he has been called a lot worse by people he respects a lot more than McGregor (quotes via Bloody Elbow):
Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
“It bothered me a little bit. I think anyone who is personally insulted is bothered,” Espinoza said. “But I’ve been called a lot worse by people I respect more than Conor, so that in itself wasn’t a big issue to me. What bothered me about the whole thing was his comments about Showtime.”
What Espinoza disliked more than the comments made directly at him by McGregor, was when the mixed martial arts (MMA) star yelled ‘F Showtime,’ essentially insulting all the men and women who put in tireless hours helping promote the rightfully named “Money Fight”:
“I know my staff and I know the kind of people who work for us,” Espinoza said. “On that timeframe, on those 72 days, there are literally dozens of people who are giving up dinners with their kids, time with their spouses, giving up things that they would rather do with their nights and weekends for the success of this pay per view, which ultimately the bulk of that money is going to Floyd and Conor. And making them both very rich men.”
“So to have Conor insult them, by extension, to say ‘f’ Showtime or whatever, when there’s an entire team of people who are making personal sacrifices to make sure his event is successful and generates money for him, it just seemed a really short-sighted comment and really unprofessional.”
Stephen Espinoza is setting his expectations for the Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather pay-per-view lower than people may think. This Saturday night (Aug. 26), McGregor and Mayweather will clash inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’ll air live on Showtime pay-per-view. Espinoza, who is a Showtime Sports Executive, recently told the media that […]
Stephen Espinoza is setting his expectations for the Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather pay-per-view lower than people may think. This Saturday night (Aug. 26), McGregor and Mayweather will clash inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’ll air live on Showtime pay-per-view. Espinoza, who is a Showtime Sports Executive, recently told the media that […]
In the past week, it seems as though the hype surrounding the released Conor McGregor and Paulie Malignaggi sparring footage has overshadowed the Irishman’s scheduled fight with Floyd Mayweather later this month (Sat. August 26, 2017). Unfavorable photos of Malignaggi leaked from the sessions that prompted the former two-weight boxing champ to leave the McGregor […]
In the past week, it seems as though the hype surrounding the released Conor McGregor and Paulie Malignaggi sparring footage has overshadowed the Irishman’s scheduled fight with Floyd Mayweather later this month (Sat. August 26, 2017).
Unfavorable photos of Malignaggi leaked from the sessions that prompted the former two-weight boxing champ to leave the McGregor camp. After Malignaggi heavily campaigned against the photos, UFC President Dana White released a few seconds of sparring footage that showed the Irish mixed martial arts (MMA) champ knock Malignaggi down, however, there is a great debate whether or not it was a knockdown or a shove.
UFC President Dana White claims that plenty of footage was provided to Showtime to use for their All Access program in the lead-up to the fight, however, they chose not to use in in order to not make Malignaggi (a Showtime Boxing analyst) look bad (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“Last thing I want to do is get into a beef with Showtime or any of that stuff, but we gave them a ton of the footage of the sparring and they denied it, because they didn’t want to make Paulie look bad,” White said. “They didn’t show any of it. They had a ton of the sparring footage and they wanted to use zero.”
Showtime Sports Executive Stephen Espinoza recently did an interview with Sporting News to respond to these claims, and stated that the UFC boss is simply ‘misinformed’:
“Dana’s misinformed here because we were dealing directly with Conor’s team on this,” Espinoza said. “We did not receive, as Dana said, a ton of footage. We received a few short clips. Roughly a minute total which were provided by the Conor camp. We reviewed them and were very interested in using them and including them in ‘All Access.’
“But it was a series of sort of spliced-together McGregor highlights, eight or nine seconds each. We didn’t want to use the whole thing. It was sort of repetitive. We were told if we didn’t use the whole segment as they edited it then we couldn’t use it at all. So in the end, Conor’s camp withheld permission for us to use it. Otherwise we definitely wanted to use it. There was no intent to protect Paulie. We just wanted to cut some of the clips because it was pretty redundant, repetitive stuff.”
