Terence Crawford says Conor McGregor offered him a fight in a crossover match in the Octagon, but he turned it down.
He spoke to former UFC champion McGregor, 36, on the phone and told him he didn’t do it because he didn’t want to be punched or coddled. Crawford says McGregor tried to convince him to take the fight, saying they could make a “ton of money,” but he wasn’t interested.
McGregor has not competed in MMA since 2021. He has lost his last two fights in the octagon and has not won a match since 2020. According to Celebrity Net Worth, McGregor’s fortune is estimated at $200 million. He made a lot of money for his boxing match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017, which pulled in a total of 5.3 million PPV purchases worldwide.
McGregor’s popularity has waned, but a match between him and Crawford would still make money because of the fan bases of both fighters.
Crawford, 37, is coming off a narrow 12-round unanimous decision victory over WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov on August 3. He didn’t do well in his debut at 154 against Madrimov, showing a combination of age, lack of power and ring rust. The only reason Crawford won the fight was Madrimov passively fighting in the stretch and giving the fight away.
“They offered me the fight and me and Conor got on the phone. I just said, ‘I’m not going to get in the Octagon with you so you can kick me and elbow me,'” Terence Crawford told Bernie Tha Boxerrevealing that he had been offered a fight against former UFC champion Conor McGregor.
This is another example of Crawford showing a lack of ambition because he will probably make more money fighting McGregor than he will in his next fight, which could be against the WBC junior middleweight champion and WBO Sebastian Fundora.
“I was just laughing and I was like, ‘Man, I respect that. But we will make a ton of money. Sometimes, it’s not about the money. I can make money, but you ain’t got to give it to me, man,” Crawford said.
McGregor is a businessman with the way he tries to get fights against different fighters. Crawford would be no match for McGregor in the Octagon unless he scored a knockout without being pinned or knocked down. Once Crawford was down, McGregor knew too many different submissions for him to be able to get back up.
