Mayweather vs McGregor 2: Will Floyd and Conor Really Fight Again?

Not yet, and nothing is signed. As of 22 October 2026, Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor II has no date, no venue, no contract and no agreed rule set, even though both men have said this year that they would do it again, Mayweather in podcast comments reported this week.

Last updated: 22 October 2026.

And the latest version came with a jab. On the PBD Podcast, written up by SB Nation on 21 October, Mayweather floated a rematch and, in the same breath, accused McGregor of pinching his whole act: "The guy that took my whole swag and took it over there to the UFC." Nine years on, Money still can't resist a dig. Against all that noise, UFC chief Dana White has shown no appetite for a second fight, McGregor is rebuilding a repaired right knee, and nobody has even settled whether it would be boxing or MMA.

Cards on the table. I don't think this fight is close, and I'd be wary of anyone who tells you it is. But I wouldn't rule it out either. The first one made so much money that both men keep drifting back to it, and money has a habit of solving problems that look permanent on paper. What follows is what has actually been said in 2026, what stands in the way, and what the first fight on 26 August 2017 tells us about how a second one might come together.

Floyd's latest jibe: 'he took my whole swag'

Let's start with the freshest round of trash talk, because it's a classic of the genre. Speaking on the PBD Podcast, Mayweather said: "Actually, I think me and Conor McGregor may lock up again." Then: "Yeah, absolutely." Next came the swagger claim, and a follow-up aimed squarely at McGregor's career before 2017: "As soon as Conor McGregor faced Floyd Mayweather, I mean, he was big as life. His career wasn't like that before. What was his biggest payday? What was his biggest fight?"

He wasn't finished. Mayweather said he made "about $300 [million]" from the 2017 fight, and on McGregor's share he offered: "I don't like to count another man's pocket, but he ate good." And according to Heavy, which covered the same podcast on 21 October, he flatly rejected the idea that the two of them are friends: "Absolutely not, he's not my friend."

And on the rules, he left no room for doubt: "We going from the shoulders. We going from the shoulders." Translation: if it happens, Floyd wants it to be boxing. Hold that thought, because it's the whole problem.

My read? This is promotion with no event attached. A podcast line gets headlines for a week. A signed bout agreement is a different thing entirely, and nobody has produced one.

Who else has talked about a rematch in 2026?

Mayweather's comments are the third rematch moment of the year. The other two came from McGregor, and they all point the same way: interest, but no deal.

The first came in January. McGregor posted a challenge aimed at the UFC and at Mayweather: "Floyd Mayweather Jr., when you're ready for that promised MMA fight, here I am." Look at the wording. He was asking for a fight under MMA rules, not a boxing rematch, and the post landed while the idea of a UFC card at the White House for the United States' 250th anniversary was doing the rounds. That card, UFC Freedom 250, went ahead on 14 June 2026.

Conor McGregor at the UFC 189 world tour stop in London, 30 March 2015. Photo: Andrius Petrucenia, CC BY-SA 2.0

The second came in July, days before McGregor's UFC comeback. Asked by TMZ Sports whether he still wanted the rematch, he said: "Yeah, for sure." Then he finished with "So, I'm open for it." Open is not signed.

So one man wants MMA and the other wants to go "from the shoulders". Spot the snag.

Then there is the man whose view matters most while McGregor is still under contract. Dana White has said "There was nothing about the Mayweather fight that makes me say" that "if we did that again, there might be a different outcome", and he has shown no interest in staging one. That is a hard sentence to get around. McGregor can't simply stroll across to boxing while he still owes the UFC a fight.

Hang on, haven't we been here before?

We have. On 18 January 2020, the night McGregor stopped Donald Cerrone in 40 seconds at UFC 246, Mayweather posted a mock poster of the two of them on Instagram, as theScore reported. Then in September 2022 he told the Daily Mail, in comments reported by Sports Illustrated, that it would be "me and Conor McGregor in 2023", adding: "We don't know if it's going to be an exhibition or a real fight." Dana White's reply, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was a blunt two-word dismissal I won't print here. 2023 came and went.

So 2026 is the third lap of the same track, and still nobody has signed anything.

Boxing, MMA or exhibition: the question nobody has answered

This is the part most coverage skips, and it's the part I'd want answered before anyone spends a penny on a trip. The first fight was a professional boxing match, sanctioned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and it went on Mayweather's record as win number 50. A second fight could take at least three forms, and each would be a very different night.

A boxing rematch would be the easiest to promote and the hardest to justify on sporting grounds. McGregor lost the first one inside ten rounds and has never boxed professionally since. An MMA fight, which is what McGregor asked for in January, would flip the advantage completely: Mayweather has never competed in MMA, and at 49 he would be learning a new sport in public. An exhibition, with no scored result, would suit Mayweather most. He has had eight of them since 2017. It would also be the hardest to dress up as a proper sequel to a fight that counted.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Juan Manuel Márquez at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, 19 September 2009. Photo: ian mcwilliams, CC BY 2.0

Mayweather's own 2026 shows how messy this gets. On 20 February he announced a return to professional boxing for at least one bout. Three days later a rematch with Manny Pacquiao was announced for September in Las Vegas, and within weeks the two camps were arguing in public about whether it would be an exhibition or a professional fight. Pacquiao confirmed on 25 June that it had been postponed indefinitely. An exhibition against Mike Zambidis in Athens, set for 27 June, was called off the same week, and a planned exhibition with Mike Tyson was put back as well. ESPN's verdict in July was that the Pacquiao rematch would not happen until 2027 at the earliest.

The plot thickens. None of that is about McGregor directly, but it tells you that Mayweather's 2026 has been full of announced fights that did not happen. I'd treat any McGregor news coming from his side with the same caution until a promoter puts a date on paper. Zuffa Boxing, which launched in January 2026, has been floated by some writers as a natural home for a rematch. Neither fighter has been announced by it, and nobody from the promotion has said a word about the idea.

If you made me pick a format, and I'd rather not, I'd say an exhibition is the only version where both men's interests could plausibly meet in the middle. McGregor wants MMA. Mayweather has spent nine years choosing fights where the risk is controlled. Those two positions only meet somewhere that doesn't count.

Floyd's exhibition era since 2018, in date order

Want to know what a Mayweather fight looks like now? Ignore the 50-0. Since McGregor he hasn't had a scored professional bout, just exhibitions with no judges and nothing added to his record. Here's the run, as listed by Boxing Insider in March 2026.

• 31 December 2018: Tenshin Nasukawa at Saitama Super Arena, Japan, stopped in the first round after three knockdowns.
• 6 June 2021: Logan Paul at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens. Eight rounds, no winner announced.
• May 2022: Don Moore, eight unscored rounds on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.
• 25 September 2022: Mikuru Asakura on the Super RIZIN card at Saitama Super Arena, stopped in the second round with Manny Pacquiao watching from ringside.
• 13 November 2022: Deji at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai, stopped in the sixth.
• 25 February 2023: Aaron Chalmers at The Arena, London, eight rounds with no score.
• 11 June 2023: John Gotti III in Sunrise, Florida. The referee stopped it in the sixth and it went down as a no contest after a brawl broke out.
• 24 August 2024: the Gotti rematch at Arena CDMX, Mexico City, eight rounds and no score.

That's eight, and our Mayweather vs Tyson exhibition rules explainer explains how these non-scoring nights work. My read: Floyd likes plenty of spectacle, very little risk and nothing that touches the 50-0.

McGregor's knee sets the clock, not Floyd's microphone

Whatever Mayweather says on a podcast, the timetable belongs to McGregor's right knee.

McGregor fought for the first time in five years at UFC 329 on 11 July 2026, against Max Holloway at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. He had not competed since breaking his leg against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021. The comeback lasted 69 seconds. He threw a jumping kick to start the fight, came down badly, and the referee stopped it at 1:09 of the first round, with Holloway given the win by TKO due to knee injury. It was a welterweight bout with no title on the line.

About a week later he confirmed the damage on X: "It was ACL and meniscus. It is the same injury as the first Holloway fight." (That one was the other leg.) He had surgery, posted that his knee was repaired, and wrote: "Comeback season starts now. No shortcuts. No excuses. Just the will to rise again." He has also said "it is well within my realm to return by next summer", which means summer 2027. That is his own estimate. No independent medical timeline has been published.

Here's the catch for anyone hoping for Mayweather. McGregor has one fight left on his UFC contract, and the fight he has talked about using it on is a third meeting with Holloway at the UFC's International Fight Week in 2027. So the honest order of events, if everything goes his way, runs like this: rehab, a UFC return around mid-2027, then the end of his current deal. Only after that does a Mayweather boxing match become something he could sign without needing the UFC's blessing. An MMA fight under UFC rules would need the UFC anyway.

Age is the other clock. Mayweather turns 50 on 24 February 2027. McGregor turned 38 in July. Neither number rules anything out in an era of exhibitions. They do make a boxing match with real stakes harder to picture with every month it slips.

Remember 26 August 2017? Here's what actually happened

It's easy to forget how strange the first fight was. A UFC champion with no professional boxing bouts took on an unbeaten 49-0 boxer at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, at 154lb, in 8oz gloves that the Nevada State Athletic Commission approved at both fighters' request.

T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, in July 2016, the year before it staged Mayweather vs McGregor. Photo: David Jones, CC BY 2.0

McGregor started well and made it awkward for Mayweather in the opening rounds. Then Mayweather walked him down. Referee Robert Byrd stopped it at 1:05 of the 10th round, with Mayweather ahead on all three cards at 87-83, 89-82 and 89-81. The win took him to 50-0, one past Rocky Marciano's 49-0, and it is still the last professional fight of his career.

Round by round: how Floyd turned it

Here's how it went, according to the running card CBS Sports kept on the night.

• Rounds 1 to 3: McGregor's best spell. CBS gave him all three while Mayweather hung back and studied his rhythm, and Wikipedia's account notes he was ahead on one judge's card early on.
• Rounds 4 to 6: Mayweather went to the body to drain McGregor's energy.
• Rounds 7 and 8: McGregor tired late in the seventh, though CBS still gave him the eighth, his last good round.
• Round 9: Mayweather wobbled him with right hands, and McGregor only just made it to the bell.
• Round 10: Mayweather backed him onto the ropes, landed a clean combination, and Byrd waved it off.

The CompuBox numbers say the same thing. Mayweather landed 170 punches to McGregor's 111, and from round six to round ten he outlanded him 130 to 60, according to CBS Sports. New to the jargon? Our guide to the boxing terms new fans hear ringside covers TKOs, cards and the rest.

Afterwards, both men were almost polite. Mayweather said: "He's a lot better than I thought he was." McGregor's verdict on Floyd: "He's composed. He's not that fast, he's not that powerful, but boy, is he composed." The tone has been rather different since.

The business numbers explain why we're still talking about it nine years on. The Nevada State Athletic Commission recorded a live gate of $55,414,865.79. Showtime, which broadcast the fight in the United States, reported 4.3 million domestic pay-per-view orders, second only to Mayweather vs Pacquiao in 2015, and total revenue of more than $600 million. Mayweather now says he personally took home about $300 million, which rather explains why he keeps bringing it up.

Those figures are the whole case for a rematch. Nobody serious argues the first fight left a sporting question unanswered.

The build-up was an event in its own right. The press tour in July 2017 ran through Los Angeles, Toronto, New York and London, and it did more to sell the fight than anything that happened in the ring. The Toronto stop gives you a fair idea of the tone.

Could a second press tour do the same? I doubt it. In 2017 the novelty was the product: nobody knew what a UFC star would look like in a boxing ring. Now we know. A rematch would have to sell something else, probably the MMA angle, and that only works if Mayweather agrees to it. Judging by "from the shoulders", he doesn't.

2017 versus now: the tale of the tape

Put the two versions side by side and you can see why a sequel is harder to sell than the original. We ran the same exercise for the heavyweights in our Joshua vs Fury tale of the tape.

Almost every answer in the right-hand column is "not agreed" or "none", a long way from the major boxing fights that already have dates and venues attached.

So how would a rematch actually get made?

Strip away the podcast clips and a sequel needs the same unglamorous pieces the first fight did. My checklist, from what has been reported:

• The UFC question. McGregor has one fight left on his deal and wants to use it on Holloway in 2027, which points to another numbered UFC card before anything else. In 2017 McGregor reportedly signed in May and the fight was confirmed on 14 June, while he was a UFC fighter.
• A rule set. McGregor asked for MMA in January. Mayweather says "from the shoulders". In 2022 he said he'd prefer an exhibition. Until one of them moves, nothing else matters.
• A weight. In 2017 Mayweather came in at 149.5lb and McGregor at 153lb for a 154lb limit. McGregor's July comeback was a welterweight bout.
• Sanctioning. The first fight was licensed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which also approved the 8oz gloves. Whatever form a sequel takes, someone has to sign it off.
• A promoter. LowKick MMA called Zuffa Boxing a "logical commercial home" in July 2026, and that is as far as it has gone.

If it ever happens, where would they fight?

This is speculation, and I'm labelling it as such. Las Vegas is the obvious answer. The first fight was at T-Mobile Arena, McGregor's July comeback was in the same building, and the UFC has used it for many of its biggest cards. Our T-Mobile Arena guide covers the venue and its UFC history if you want the background.

The other possibility is the Gulf. The UFC is in Abu Dhabi this very week for UFC 333, so it isn't a wild thought. But nobody has reported talks about a Mayweather and McGregor fight there, and I'm only mentioning it because it would change the travel picture for a UK group completely: different flights, different time zone, different kind of trip.

What would make me believe it? A promoter announcement with a date. A commission or sanctioning arrangement that tells us whether it's boxing, MMA or an exhibition. A named venue. Until all of those exist, I'd treat every rematch headline as exactly that, a headline.

Planning a big fight night while you wait

I can't put a client group into a fight that has no date, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I would say to anyone who wants a combat sports night in the diary is that there are real ones on the calendar. Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua is set for Friday 11 December 2026 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, and our Fury vs Joshua event page covers that night. On the MMA side, UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on 24 October 2026 has two title fights at the top of the card.

If you're weighing this fight up for a client night, my advice is short. Don't plan a year around it. Plan the nights that exist, and treat the rematch as a bonus if it ever gets made. The people who end up disappointed by combat sports are usually the ones who paid for flights on the strength of a quote. A podcast clip is great entertainment. A promoter's press release with a date on it is a reason to plan.

If you want to follow the rematch story itself, our pages on Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor are where we track both men, and we keep a separate tracker on the Mayweather vs Tyson exhibition. Our exhibition fights hub is the one to watch if this ends up as a non-scoring bout. For McGregor's comeback night itself, there's the UFC 329 event page and our UFC 329 preview, written before the fight.

If a date does appear, register your interest with us and you'll hear about it as soon as there's a venue to plan around. My guess is that it won't be before the second half of 2027, if it comes at all. Until then, enjoy the swag row.