Former four division world champion Adrien Broner has claimed that his close friend, Floyd Mayweather, had pre-planned to stop UFC superstar Conor McGregor in the tenth round.
In August of 2017, Mayweather and McGregor collided in a major cross-sport pay-per-view encounter at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
McGregor did well in the first few rounds, before Mayweather took over the contest. He slowly broke McGregor down and stopped him in the tenth round. Mayweather would then retire from the sport in the aftermath.
According to Broner, there was a pre-existing strategy in place to take McGregor to the tenth and then take him out.
“He carried him to the tenth round, stopped him, like he told me he was going to do. MMA fighters, they don’t fight twelve rounds, they fight three-five rounds. They don’t fight twelve rounds,” Broner told VladTV.
The bout between Mayweather and McGregor generated tremendous business, with over 4 million purchases on pay-per-view and a massive gate.
Broner – who has been inactive since losing a twelve round decision to Manny Pacquiao in January 2019 – has interest in taking part in a cross-sport boxing match against a star fighter from the UFC.
“Hell yeah. You’ve got to think, that’s crossing two support systems. You’ve got the UFC support, then you’ve got the boxing supporters, so the fight’s automatically going to be big. Especially if it’s a big-name UFC fighter. I’d fight anyone of those motherf—ers, though,” Broner said.
Both Mayweather and Broner have dropped hints regarding ring returns in the near future, but there is nothing concrete on the table for either athlete. Mayweather had previously planned to fight in October under a joint venture with UFC President Dana White – which is no longer in play due to the COVID-19 pandemic.