After defeating Conor McGregor at UFC 229 last October, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s next plan was to take a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather. He still wants this to be part of his next move in the foreseeable future, along with fights against Georges St-Pierre and Tony Ferguson, before retiring.
Considering how lucrative Mayweather vs. McGregor was, the same is expected for Mayweather vs. Khabib, at least by UFC analyst Joe Rogan.
“I think if Khabib stepped in and tried to fight Floyd right now, right now, if they tried to set it up in two months, I guarantee you it would sell at least a million PPV buys,” Rogan said during the weekend’s broadcast of his Fight Companion podcast (transcript via MMA Fighting). “A million. It does a million.”
While he also stated that this would be a “terrible move” for Khabib to make, Rogan argued that having another crossover matchup is a more profitable move than when Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao and Andre Berto in 2015.
“Here’s the thing, who was Floyd’s – was it [Manny] Pacquiao and then [Andre Berto] and then retired, right? And [Manny] Pacquiao got the giant, most PPV numbers ever, but then [Andre Berto], if I’m correct, only got a few hundred thousand, like 300,000 PPV buys,” he said.
“So he fights Andre Berto, that only gets like 350,000 or something like that, then he fights Conor and it’s millions of PPVs. If he fought Khabib, it would still be better than fighting any of those other guys.”
Khabib’s career is currently on a standstill, as he waits on the Nevada State Athletic Commissions’ decision on his sanction for the UFC 229 post-fight brawl. It will be discussed during the NSAC meeting on Tuesday, January 29th.