Dunlap: I'm Sold On This McGregor/Mayweather Jr. Fight
PITTSBURGH (93-7 THE FAN) -- Take my money.
Here you go. Take it. I want to give it to you.
Just take it, please.
What's the number I call? Do I have to go to the Internet somewhere? Or, do I just hit a button on my remote control? Do I need to mail a check somewhere? How do we do this transaction?
Take it. Take my $100.
I'm sold as sold can be on the Aug. 26 boxing match between UFC superstar Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather, the foremost pound-for-pound pugilist in the world.
And you know what? I don't even care if the match --- set for T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas --- ends up being a total dud from a competition standpoint. I don't care in the least if McGregor gets put on his Irish wallet 30 seconds into this thing and never gets up.
I don't care if Mayweather toys with him and never lets McGregor land a punch or if McGregor loses his mind and ends up doing something totally nuts to get disqualified.
I'm in. I'm in 1,000,000 percent.
Know why? Conor McGregor has sold me on this card. He is the reason I'm going to separate myself from $100 and do something I have never done --- order a pay-per-view event on my cable system.
Man, I don't know if I have anticipated a sporting event like this in quite awhile. And, truth be told, I'm not into UFC at all and have grown super tired of boxing to where I have probably watched three fights in the last 10 years.
You see, this guy's showmanship and the audacious way he carries himself (right down to his fancy suit with expletives standing in for the pinstripes) has got me buying full-bore into this circus. I can't get enough of it.
Tuesday, at the first of a four-stop promotional tour in Los Angeles, McGregor jumped on the insult train and let it roll wide open down the tracks.
"He is f----d," McGregor said of Mayweather. "There is no other way about it. His little legs, his little core, his little head. I'm gonna knock him out inside four rounds, mark my words."
When Mayweather tried to talk, McGregor wouldn't relent and at one point McGregor's microphone needed to be turned off to keep some kind of structure to the event. No matter, the Irishman just yelled.
It was fabulous, it was magnificent, it was such a damn spectacle.
It was the stuff of Muhammad Ali. It was the stuff that a guy like Don King could only dream about when promoting a fight.
Man, I love America for the fact that we can make a marvel out of something like this.
There is a chance in all of this --- a good chance, some say --- that the build-up will be much better than the fight. That the span of time between now and Aug. 26 will be much more entertaining than when these two combatants enter that squared circle in the shiny new arena tucked just off the Las Vegas Strip.
Guess what? I don't care. I don't care at all. I'm sold. On all of it. Hook, line and sinker. All of it.
Conor McGregor and his brash, loudmouthed and confident ways have done it for me. I don't know what kind of boxer he will be, but he is one hell of showman.
Mancrush city!
So sign me up. Take my money. Count me in for this spectacle.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
