All time greats have always done their part to promote boxing but Mayweather is the only one i can think of since Jack Johnson that has actively tried to destroy the sport of boxing. Klitschko even after losing against Joshua thanked 90,000 for coming to support boxing. On the other hand mayweather is a points machine and tells champions to avoid tough match ups. Because of him, people now place too much importance on being undefeated and once someone loses, he becomes a bum. Mayweather vs Mcgregor is a lose-lose situation for boxing. Thats why Dana white is onboard for making the fight happen. If mayweather wins, he was always supposed to win and casual fans will still be turned off by his hugging and pot shoting so boxing will still not gain many fans from another boring points victory. Now if Mcgregor wins, it would do a lot for the UFC agenda after they have been dirsespecting and discrediting boxing for years. A UFC champion beating or even knocking out a 49-0 self proclaimed TBE boxer would critically damage the repution of boxing. If the unthinkable happens, amateurs might even start thinking why go to the olympics when i can become a UFC fighter, and easily cross over to boxing any time i want. 2017 has been a great year for boxing and all these great fights can be ruined by Mayweathers greed. I am not saying that Floyd hasn't done good for boxing but imho, his bad deeds in boxing far outweigh the good.
Mayweather earned a lot of money and was the athlete who earned the most money in his generation in all of sports. He proved that if you do it right you can earn more in boxing than in any other sport. I'm sure that this definitely motivated some people to go into boxing and try to get as close as they can to earn that Mayweather money. At a time when UFC was getting some hype Mayweather humiliated MMA by flaunting how much he earned while the UFC fighters earned crap and had to actually call out Floyd to get some publicity. So you have to give him some credit, boxing was better off with him then if he wouldn't have existed. If that freakshow fight gets made Floyd isn't going to lose, it's impossible. If you think Garcia vs Salka was a missmatch this is like 10 times worse. Boxing is one of the most predictable sports, Conor can't even hit Floyd with a meaningful shot, it's pretty much impossible for him to do ANYTHING that's how big the difference in their level is. It will make UFC and MMA look very very bad, possible even lead to its eventual demise.
Your'e absolutely right that the mcgregor fight shows that he cares very little about boxing. He knows that if somehow he loses the mcgregor boxing match, he will still get his $150 million paycheck with his faculties in tact. If floyd fought mcgregor in UFC, it would do less damage to boxing because if he loses in the octagon then he was meant to lose because he has no ground game or couldnt check leg kicks. Mayweather wont go anywhere near the octagon though because unlike in the boxing ring, if he loses, it would be like torture.
As along as Mcgregor doesnt lose to Floyd in the octagon, it does nothing to the UFC's reputation. An old david haye blew his achilles and got TKOed by an average LHW so anything is possible in boxing. Mcgregor wouldnt try to box with Floyd, he would follow Maidanas strategy and get Floyd to the ropes where he tries to rough him up and land that left hand hard. In thesame way as Floyd beating Mcgregor in the Octagon would damage the UFC, Mcgregor beating Floyd in the ring would damage boxing.
McGregor can't follow Maidana's strategy who is a completely different fighter. Very few people can fight like Maidana and the only reason why he got Floyd to the ropes before Floyd made adjustments is because of his very sophisticated and technical use of the jab and gauging the distance and cutting Floyd off. Something that McGregor has no clue what to do. McGregor also doesn't know how to fight on the inside and is too tall to be a good inside fighter anyway. If he will come forward Mayweather would either dance around him all night like he did in the 2nd fight against Maidana, but he could also just let him come close and tie him up and rough him up as Floyd has an underrated inside game while MMA fighters are used to Greco-Roman or Thai clinching. Maidana was a short come forward fighter with high output and cardio for days, Conor is a low output tall rangy counterpuncher. No one can emulate Maidana other than short fighters with his style and cardio and a tall fighter who fights like short fighter like Margarito.
It will hurt the UFC because the casual fans don't know **** about fighting and combat sports and it's all about perception. When Floyd schools Conor in the ring badly people will think that the same would happen in the octagon. For example when Ronda hype was high people many thought that she could beat Floyd. Let's say it was like 50-50 in the public. Then when Ronda lost to an MMA fighter Holly Holm (with boxing background but still trained in MMA) then suddenly the opinion went like 95-5 in favor of Floyd even if the original point that Floyd had no grappling still remained (and Holly Holm only won because she was able to neutralize Ronda's submission attempt, using her MMA grappling skills). That's because the perception changed and Ronda lost her invincible aura. Same will happen to Conor, the reason why people who don't have a clue about boxing give him a chance is because of perception of him as being a good fighter with deadly hands. When people will see just how big the difference is between MMA and boxing in terms of pure boxing skills then the perception will change again just like it did with Ronda.
