"When you have someone as big as a Conor McGregor in the UFC, and then you look at a boxer like say Shawn Porter, realistically is Shawn Porter a bigger superstar than Conor McGregor? No, but he makes the same amount of money as him. And that's because boxing is bigger and boxing is stronger, but whoever is working with Dana White or running that business over there may be smarter because they are like, 'Lets attack boxing. That way the fight fans will say who are these UFC guys,'" stated middleweight contender Willie Monroe Jr., who spoke in-depth about the potential mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. Check out what else he had to say!
WILLIE MONROE JR. ON MAYWEATHER VS. MCGREGOR:
What this proposed fight is essentially doing is making fight fans buy UFC pay-per-views to see what all the fuss is about. The UFC can dangle that Floyd Mayweather bait and get Conor in the cage for 3 or 4 more fights. It's a promotional tool now because after each UFC fight that Conor fights or before each fight, they'll just say, "If he wins this one, he may fight Mayweather next." And the only reason they are doing that is because Floyd is the biggest name in boxing and he's smaller than Conor McGregor. Conor McGregor would realistically be a junior middleweight or a middleweight if he was really becoming a boxer. If he really wanted to box and show that he could fight in the ring with some of the best, he would be calling out Canelo or Triple G, so you gotta read between the lines. This isn't a ploy for him to take over boxing like he's saying; this is a ploy to steal boxing fans and boxing headlines because the UFC doesn't have as big a fan base or a as loyal fan base as boxing. They are trying to take the fans and they are very smart with doing it.
You think about the UFC's last 5 or so big stars, let's break them down and as I break them down, you will see that they all linked themselves to boxing or attached themselves to boxing in some form or fashion. Let's start with Anderson Silva. He was a pretty big deal, but once he stated his desire to box Roy Jones Jr., he became larger than life because he convinced fight fans that he could beat Roy Jones. George St. Pierre, until he linked with Freddie Roach, you never heard about how much of a world-class striker he was. He was known as a well-rounded martial artist. The minute he added some work with Freddie Roach, he became "world-class" at striking. And then the last 3, Jon Jones, Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor all attached their names to Floyd Mayweather in some way, shape, or form and it took them up a notch, so I say again, how many times is boxing going to play the fool and keep feeding into this thing and letting them build their name off of our sport? Jon Jones made it public that he wanted to work with Floyd and possibly join The Money Team. Ronda Rousey took public shots at Floyd and graced the cover of Ring Magazine. Let me ask you, what has the UFC done for Ring Magazine or boxing? And now obviously you have Conor McGregor saying he would do this or that to Floyd. Again, I'm all for boxing trainers helping MMA fighters get their hands better, I'm all for cross promoting to the point of having boxers show up at MMA events and vice versa, but don't let them use our sport to make theirs bigger and that's what happening.
I'm a person of moral and ethics and I just don't think I could personally entertain it because of the moral ground that I stand on that they are two totally different sports. Don't try to use us. Now if you said, "Willie Monroe, why don't you make your face seen at a couple of UFC fights so that we can get that cross marketing and that crossover and then we'll come make a couple of appearances at your fight, they'll see the comraderie between us, and then people will start to enjoy both." I get that. When you say cross marketing and both sports are going to grow from it, I would be down for that because UFC fighters and boxers all get up at 5 in the morning and run 5 miles; we all know what it's like to push our bodies to crazy limits and beyond the limits of even other athletes. So I respect UFC and MMA fighters. I respect anyone that does a one-on-one sport. But don't try and play on my intelligence. Floyd always prides himself on being smarter than everyone else and he got this and he got that off of being smart. Well, if you're going to preach that you're being smart, make smart decisions and don't be selfish. Make a smart decision that's not going to help just you. It's almost like Floyd doesn't want anybody or anything great in boxing after him. It's like, Floyd, all of them welterweight belts that you wore, decades and decades from now, other fighters are going to wear those same belts, other fighters are going to win titles, and other fighters are going to make money. You can't be known as the guy forever. And I'm not saying hurry up and get out of the picture because boxing is his life, but if you're retired, talk as a retired man. Like every time someone asks Floyd a question, he will be like, "But they still couldn't do what Floyd Mayweather Jr. did." It's like, okay, you did your thing, but it was a lot of great fighters that did things before you.
You see a lot of the older guys giving props and if you got younger fighters coming up, especially our young, black, and Hispanic fighters, not to bring race into it, but the turmoil the country is in with race, if anything, someone who is as big of a figurehead as Floyd Mayweather should be making these young black and Hispanic men make them feel like they can accomplish something. I have a pretty big fan base as a fighter and I love all of my fans, but personally, when you hear me talk, I make sure I sound educated and I make sure I try to plug in that I graduated and I'm in school right now working on my college degree. I try to plug that because I want the ones coming up after me to know that you need an education and being a champion isn't everything. So with Floyd, I understand he may not have gone to college or anything, but there are other things that you can encourage these fighters to do instead of downplaying them. These fighters work hard, just like you. A lot of fighters look up to him and he'll downplay their existence. I just think it aggravates me, and listen, I get it, he's trying to make a fight with Conor McGregor, but it aggravates me to see him downplay so many fighters in boxing like he's never heard of them, he's never watched them fight, or they won't be as great as him while he's praising a guy that's 0-0-0, never stepped foot in a boxing ring for anything purposeful, and trying to convince people that the only reason Conor's ever lost in the UFC is because he was choked out when in all actuality, he was the one initiating the takedown because he was getting hands put on him.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]