CONOR McGREGOR has been welcomed back on Showtime to fight Jake Paul and Floyd Mayweather – despite calling their TV boss a “weasel”.
McGregor crossed over from the UFC octagon to the boxing ring in 2017 but was beaten by Mayweather in ten rounds.
The super-fight sold 4.3MILLION pay-per-views on Showtime after a blockbuster build up between the superstar pair.
But as the bout approached, the rivalry increasingly soured with Showtime Sports boss Stephen Espinoza caught in the crosshairs.
McGregor ruthlessly told Espinoza: “Look at you, you little f***ing weasel. I can see it in your eyes, you’re a f***ing b****.”
But now five years on and the Irishman linked with a rematch against Mayweather, the TV chief would have the ex-UFC champion back.
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Espinoza told SunSport: “Look, I’d put my personal feelings aside for that one.
“The reality is, it wasn’t my favourite thing in combat sports but it all ended well with a major event and a Mayweather knockout.”
Mayweather, 45, officially retired after beating McGregor, 34, but has boxed in four exhibition bouts since.
But the American revealed ongoing talks for a rematch in either a professional or exhibition capacity, which Showtime were privy to.
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Espinoza revealed: “Yeah, we were aware.
“Floyd has a lot of interesting things going on, we had a great partnership and I’d like to think anything going forward we’d get an opportunity at.
“Certainly if it was a rematch with Conor McGregor, we’d be interested in it and I still think it’s a massive event.”
Espinoza recognises replicating the same commercial success would be a fight within itself but also an opportunity too good to pass up on.
He said: “I think we’d do it again. It will be very difficult to recreate that buzz, particularly when both of them were still more active.
“It would be challenging to top that but I still think it would be bigger than almost any other fight we could do outside of it.”
Showtime this week welcomes the return of YouTuber-turned boxer Paul, 25, who faces UFC great Anderson Silva, 47.
The American has McGregor in his sights for a future fight, something Espinoza has opened the door to.
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He added: “Certainly the UFC brought plenty of assets to the table in the Mayweather-McGregor promotion.
“We’ve got a model and we’d be happy to work with them again, if that’s something they want to do.
“There are also some Bellator fighters that Jake has talked about and going back and forth with. So, I think whoever it is, we’ll figure it out.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
