By: Sean Crose
“HOOOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIT!!!!!!” UFC honcho Dana White tweeted this week. “WTF is goin on here (?)” The quote appeared above a picture of White, Rizin Fighting Federation boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara…and Floyd Mayweather. The post, of course, got social media humming, for both White and Mayweather know how to draw in attention better than anyone. According to Skakibara, the presence of White was unexpected. He was meeting with Mayweather, who he worked with on 2018’s exhibition bout between the former great and Tenshin Nasukawa, when White surprised him. “When I was having a meeting with Mayweather,” the Daily Mail quotes Skakibara as tweeting, “I was surprised when Dana appeared when I was told, ‘I have a guy who wants to see Sakakibara from now on, so I’ll call him by phone.”
Not that the Rizing Fighting Federation honcho appears to have minded. ” It’s been about 15 years,” the Mail quotes Skakibara as stating, “since I met him again…one of the guys I wanted to meet back in the industry. Something may be born by chance!’ Of course, in combat sports few things happen by chance, lest it be a one punch (or one kick) knockout. The truth is that Mayweather and White had a smashing success when they orchestrated the beyond lucrative fight between Mayweather and UFC star Conor McGregor in 2017.
And it appears they’ve been wanting to team up again for a while now. While Mayweather is seemingly retired, he’s not above an exhibition bout – nor has he ever been afraid to be in the spotlight. White, on the other hand, has been wanting to make his mark in the boxing business for years now. What a deal between the two men and Skakibara might entail is anyone’s guess. Professional fighters are now far more apt to jump into a new combat sport than has been the case in the past.
Still, there’s a chance, a very good chance, that this could be much ado about nothing. Again, Mayweather and White love to be in the public eye. What’s more, they both have a knack for keeping their fan bases on their toes. They supposedly had made a deal a few years back, but that deal reportedly ended up falling through. One only knows what, if anything will come from their encounter with Skakibara. Then again, few originally thought a fight between Mayweather and McGregor was possible – and then it broke the bank.