Terence Crawford is pushing back on Conor McGregor’s claims that he turned down a $200 million offer to fight “The Notorious” in boxing and MMA, but his current comments don’t quite line up with what he said about the fight two years ago.
According to McGregor, Saudi boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh was trying to set up a two-fight $200 million deal where he and “Bud” would compete in both combat sports. A lot of MMA fighters have crossed over into boxing, but it’s much rarer for boxers to cross over into MMA.
It didn’t work out well for James Toney, although Ray Mercer did KO former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in 2009.
As Crawford saw it, there were some talks but an offer never came in.
“That was a lie. It was cap,” Crawford said on the Ariel Helwani Show. “It wasn’t never no $200 million offer. Now they asked me what I do, and I told them. I said, ‘Man, you ain’t about to be kicking on me, Conor.’ Because we was on FaceTime, and I did tell them that. But they didn’t say, ‘Hey, you got $200 million [if] you fight ’em in boxing and fight them in MMA.’ That was never the case.”
“If it was just said to me, then I could say it was a offer. But if if nothing is previewed to me, I can’t say what is what. He’s making up numbers, in my head.”
Crawford claimed he would have said yes if the offer had actually been made.
“Yeah, I woulda did it. Why wouldn’t I?” he asked.
Too bad “Bud” is too committed to retirement to consider it now.
“I don’t need to do it,” he explained. “Back then, it would have been a good deal. Right now, where I’m sitting at right now, I don’t need to do it. That’s the thing. I’m in a different space in my life right now, I don’t have to take those fights. Back then, I probably woulda took it. I woulda been like, ‘Alright. Let’s do it.'”
“Conor’s not the best at wrestling. I’m not saying I’m the best wrestler either, though, but I know standing up is only gonna take one good shot, and I’m a put him to sleep. He gonna try to kick me and take down. We just gonna do what we do.”
When Crawford discussed the situation back in October 2024, he didn’t sound as confident in his ability to compete in the cage.
“[Conor] was like, ‘But we’ll make a s—t ton of money!'” Crawford said in an interview with Bernie Tha Boxer. “I said, ‘Yeah, sometimes it ain’t about the money. I can make money, but you ain’t about to be kicking me, dude. Them kicks and elbows, that s— ain’t no joke.’ We would have made a s— ton of money.”
