Floyd who?
Conor McGregor has been focusing primarily on his boxing as he looks to redress his shortcomings on the feet in the second round of his UFC 196 meeting with Nate Diaz.
He’s spent time sparring with former IBO welterweight champion Chris van Heerden, he’s drafted in a 20-year-old middleweight from Newry to replicate Diaz’s style and photographs of McGregor wearing boxing gloves have far outweighed those of him training in a gi in recent weeks.
‘The Notorious’ fancies himself in a stand-up war with anyone in the UFC and has, on numerous occasions, toyed with the prospect of meeting one of the greatest boxers of all time Floyd Mayweather in a super-fight of unprecedented proportions.
But while it’s unlikely for Mayweather to come out of retirement to face McGregor in a fight of any kind, Amir Khan sounds like he’s taking the idea rather seriously.
Speaking to FloCombat, the former WBA and IBF light-welterweight champion admitted that he would genuinely be up for facing the Irishman under MMA rules.
“I would definitely give it a go. It’s something to learn, as well,” Khan said.
The Bolton fighter most recently fought at 155 lbs in a catchweight fight with ‘Canelo’ Alvarez that he lost by knockout but Khan has typically weighed in lighter throughout his career.
He would, in fact, be most comfortable at featherweight if he were to ever make the move to MMA and it just so happens that McGregor is the reigning 145 lb champion.
Khan believes that he is still young enough to learn sufficient grappling techniques to make a stab of a career as a mixed martial artist.
“I’m at that age where I’m still learning, adapting and getting better,” he said. “So I still have time under me as well. I’m still a young lad and got loads left in me.
“It just depends on the weight category. But look, as a fighter, that’s a fight I would take. McGregor is a massive name in MMA, and I’m a big name in boxing, so globally, I think it would be a massive fight.
“Sometimes, you have to put friendship aside and you have to take it in the cage or in the ring. But yeah, if that fight comes up to me, I’m not one to back away from it.
“With MMA, it seems quite easy to make fights that the fans want to see. I was chasing Mayweather for two years, and the fight never happened. The fans wanted to see it, but he didn’t want it. So that’s the difference between MMA and boxing.
“Even if I started to train MMA next year, I’d only be 30 years old. I could stop and train for a full year and become a good MMA fighter. It’s in our blood to fight. I’ve been fighting all my life, so for me, I don’t think it’d be a problem for me to learn and switch over to the sport.”
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