Talks of Conor McGregor facing Floyd Mayweather began to surface at some point in 2015.
When McGregor appeared on an American talk show hosted by Conan O’Brien back in July of that year there was speculation of the improbable matchup.
Fast forward two years and the fight is actually happening and penned in for 26 August.
It seemed like a long process but in reality it only took a few weeks to arrange the whole thing.
There are a number of parties that were involved in making the fight come about, the UFC, Mayweather’s team and then Showtime who will be broadcasting the fight.
Showtime’s executive vice president Stephen Espinozo was speaking to Ariel Helwani on MMA Hour on Monday night and revealed how quickly things moved along.
“When things really got down to actual negotiations it was when the UFC sort of announced that they reached an agreement for Conor to participate in the fight because that, at least from the Mayweather perspective, was the biggest obstacle.
“Whether or not Conor actually could legally, whether he had to permission, to fight a boxing match outside of the UFC.
“So from when that happened to the closing of the deal was only about two to three weeks.”
If the fight is to break records it will have to surpass the four and a half million pay per view buys that Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao received.
It was because of that fight and its tough negotiations that a deal was struck so quickly with the UFC.
“We were all sort of burnt out by the Mayweather-Pacquaio negotiation but this was the opposite end of the spectrum,” he told Helwani.
“The actual negotiations between the two sides really only took two weeks.
“It’s remarkable; there’s never been an event this big made so quickly.”
