Come Saturday night, Rory McIlroy will - like millions of others - sit down to watch Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather step into the ring.
Speaking ahead of the Northern Trust tournament in New York this week, McIlroy said he's followed the build-up to the fight closely - 'all I do is watch YouTube videos of Conor McGregor'.
The Northern Irish golfer says McGregor is someone he's an admirer of, though 'some of the stuff he does wouldn't be my cup of tea'. What exactly those aspects of McGregor's behaviour that he doesn't like are, he did not expand on.
McIlroy does have some fears about this weekend's fight, one many view as being a circus, WWE-level entertainment rather than pure sport. McIlroy wonders if behind the scenes, behind all the bluster from both McGregor and Mayweather, they are simply laughing at the public for buying into it.
I'm interested just to see how it all plays out, but I just fear that they do all this trash-talking and they go behind the scenes and they are having a laugh and thinking: I can't believe we are talking all this public for a ride. We are all buying into it and they are like, can you believe these people believe this. I just hope it doesn't turn into it and I hope it's not in any way fixed.
It's amazing, like we were talking about, imagine McGregor knocks him out in the first couple of rounds. They would get even more for the rematch. The rematch would be even bigger. So it's just - I just don't know what that zero on Mayweather's record is worth, and that's the thing. That's his legacy. If he goes down and lies down for ten seconds at some point in that, you know, is that worth making an extra few 100 million? That's sort of up to him.
McIlroy added that he has met McGregor in the past, viewing him as being 'very humble. He's a showman. He does all this stuff for the cameras. Behind the scenes, he wants to be a shrewd businessman'.
Picture credit: Sportsfile
