Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor Is On!

Floyd Mayweather fights Conor McGregor in a 154-pound matchup on August 26 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The unlikely, unprecedented bout pits the undefeated American boxer against the pound-for-pound king of mixed-martial arts (MMA). Both men rank as the undisputed pay-per-view champions of their respective sports. Mayweather exceeded 4.4 million buys in his 2015 fight against Manny Pacquiao and McGregor attracted 1.6 million subscribers in his victory over Nate Diaz last year.

On a Wednesday evening conference call, Mayweather advisor Leonard Ellerbe, UFC President Dana White, and Showtime Sports Executive Vice President and General Manager Stephen Espinoza raised expectations that domestic pay-per-view buys could break records.

“We’re going to have our calculators ready and all the batteries charged,” Espinoza said. “The sky’s the limit.”

McGregor, although 21-3 in MMA, makes his boxing debut against the man some consider the best practitioner of the sweet science in history. Mayweather, 40, returns from a two-year retirement. Despite the layoff, he remains a heavy betting favorite.

Ellerbe tried to inflate the chances of his boss’s foe, noting McGregor fighting in his prime at 28 and his heavy hands. “When he touches people,” he noted, “they fall out.” Dana White pointed to McGregor’s southpaw style as a “kink” in Mayweather’s armor.

The parties characterized the negotiations as almost effortless. They refused to reveal the purse split or absolute paydays. The fighters agreed to 10-ounce gloves and USADA drug testing. White dismissed the notion of McGregor resorting to MMA tactics should the fight go the wrong way for him by stating that he likes money more than anything and would face massive “lawsuits” if he violated the agreed upon rules. No one on the conference call confirmed a pay-per-view price. But White saying. “You can’t charge what you normally charge for a pay-per view,” indicates a pricing-point similar to the $99 cost of the Pacquiao-Mayweather pay-per view.

“We’ve actually tapped into the audience that doesn’t follow either sport,” Espinoza maintained. “This is such an unprecedented event, such a spectacle.”