Triple H On How WWE Influenced McGregor vs Mayweather

The Conor McGregor vs Floyd Mayweather fight was one of the biggest attractions boxing has seen in a very long time. The ten-round contest might have been panned by some boxing traditionalists but you can’t deny it garnered a lot of attention.

Dana White’s claim of 6.5 million pay-per-view buys is still up in the air because the official numbers aren’t out yet, but there were a ton of people who watched the fight and a lot of people couldn’t even get it due to the overwhelming demand.

Triple H recently spoke to ESPN’s First Take where he discussed the big fight and how WWE’s influence could be traced to many aspects of the big combat sporting event.

“I think from a promotional standpoint they did a lot of things right. They found two personalities and that’s really what this is all about. Floyd will be the first guy to tell you that it’s personalities that sells fights, it’s what he does, he changed himself from ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ to ‘Money Mayweather’ and that was based around WWE and the culture of changing Hulk Hogan to ‘Hollywood Hulk Hogan,’ and reinventing yourself. He invented that persona. McGregor created a persona, a lot of it having to do around what, kind of, WWE does and also what Mayweather does.

“When you have personalities like that and you put them in a ring with that type of conflict – it’s what we do no a daily basis. But they did it very well. It was a moment in time that I don’t think you can replicate. The great things is, I think what people where afraid of was that it wouldn’t deliver. I think it did deliver. I think people got an entertaining 10 round fight, it ended up where the educated person would imagine that it’d end up, but I think it was entertaining and it delivered on a lot of levels.”

Credit for quotes goes to ESPN’s First Take and Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.