McGregor: I’d rather box Mayweather again than fight under modified rules

Conor McGregor isn’t interested in any ‘modified rules MMA’ bout with Floyd Mayweather.

A little over a year ago, UFC star Conor McGregor made a bold move into the boxing world by facing the best boxer of the generation, Floyd Mayweather. It didn’t go great for McGregor, as Mayweather carried him for a while before deciding to end the novelty event, not too soon that people felt ripped off, but soon enough that he didn’t have to go to the cards, which would’ve been kind of embarrassing for Floyd against a novice.

But everyone made a lot of money, etc.

Anyway, McGregor has mentioned potentially fighting Mayweather again, and Mayweather has said — probably without really meaning it fully — that he’d go to UFC to fight McGregor a second time.

But most have speculated that Floyd would want some sort of modified rules to do that, and Conor says he’s not interested in all that:

“If [Mayweather] has the bottle to come over and deal with this, like he said he has, let’s see what happens. I would also like to box him again. Everything is being discussed. Every rule set. If it’s not an MMA bout, then I don’t want to know. It’s either a straight MMA bout or a straight boxing bout. If they come looking for modified rules, I would rather just box the kid again. If you don’t want to deal with it, then don’t deal with it and stop going on like you’re doing.”

McGregor is currently set to face Khabib Nurmagomedov on Saturday at UFC 229 in Las Vegas, returning to T-Mobile Arena, where he lost to Mayweather in August 2017. It’s Conor’s first MMA fight since November 2016.

Mayweather, meanwhile, has been linked to a rematch with Manny Pacquiao, which nobody’s really asking to see.