It has been 8 years since  Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor met inside the boxing ring for a crossover fight in Paradise, Nevada. Even after so many years, this event is still surreal to think about. The then-most anticipated fight in combat sports started with the referee cautioning one of the fighters in which sport they were competing. “You’re going to hear me say stop because I’m not going to wrestle with you, and I’m not going to grapple with you,” referee Robert Byrd said while squarely looking at McGregor.

Well, McGregor was one of the first, if not the first MMA fighter to cross over into the world of boxing. There was speculation that the MMA star would resort to his fighting arsenal outside the boxing ruleset, so the referee had to make him aware beforehand. Ultimately Mayweather defeated McGregor by TKO in Round 10 in front of 14,623 roaring people at T-Mobile Arena. The fight generated 4.3 million domestic pay-per-view buys and more than $600 million in total revenue, according to Showtime.

That fight was the first of many cross-over boxing fights, common in the combat sports world today. While speaking about his career trajectory with Brian Mazique, Mayweather alluded to his and McGregor’s fight setting a new trend in the fight world. ‘Money’ said, “Me and Canelo were able to you know lock up and do record-breaking numbers. And then I think that Conor McGregor was good, just—when we broke the move where we said, you know, that MMA and boxing, really can come together. And that opened a floodgate for the Youtubers and everybody to get involved in the sport of boxing.”

Chuck Liddell went to Japan to participate in a PRIDE Fighting Championships tournament in 2003. But after that, the UFC had never let one of its fighters partake in an event promoted by a different fighting organization. However, Dana White had explained once why he allowed the crossover boxing match to happen despite being against it. White had said to FOX Sports, “Conor McGregor is that guy that when he’s staring down the barrel of ‘my opponent pulled out and now I’m going to fight a guy who’s stylistically supposed to be bad for me cause he’s a wrestler’ or whatever the deal might be, this kid doesn’t care.”

McGregor had, in the past stepped up to every challenge that UFC threw at him, which put him in a different league according to the boss. So naturally, White could not say no to this crossover fight. But what about now when McGregor has not stepped inside the cage in three years, after his loss to Dustin Poirier?

What is next for Conor McGregor?

Conor McGregor who is a part owner of BKFC, has shown his keen interest in competing in the premier bare-knuckle promotion. However, he still has contractual obligations to UFC with two more fights left in the premier MMA promotion. David Feldman acknowledged the challenges and, during one of his interviews, said, “I can’t [make that fight] obviously unless the UFC wanted to do something with us, and they don’t need us for anything.”

But Feldman is not completely hopeless about the possibility. He already has a few opponents in his mind for McGregor’s BKFC debut. He spoke to Tim Welch and named the fighters he would like to see McGregor fight. He said, “I mean if you go back a few years. Before he was even partners with us. I would have loved to have seen Conor McGregor fight Floyd Mayweather in BKFC because I think it’s a different outcome. But right now I mean there are a lot of guys out there. But I mean the guy on our roster – him versus Mike Perry I think would make a lot of noise. Him versus Robbie Lawler, him versus Ilia Topuria – I think that would be an amazing fight. They both can bang” 

The rematch against Mayweather right now as the 50-0 boxer is not on the books currently. His rumored fight against Logan Paul in India was also vetoed by the UFC CEO Dana White. It seems like he will have to fight out his UFC contract. But when will that happen? Your guess is as good as ours. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.