Ultimate Fighting Championship

Mayweather vs. McGregor reportedly progressing

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

Kyle Symes/Fansided

Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor could be one step closer to becoming a reality.

Originally thought to be nothing more than banter between two superstars in different sports, it now looks like we could be inching closer to a showdown between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.

MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani, once a skeptic of the fight happening, is now saying both parties have moved to the “exploratory phase.”

Again, an unprecedented amount of hurdles. But, everyone involved stands to make a lot of money, hence the exploring. Worth monitoring now. https://t.co/bYXlpZmxhb

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 13, 2017

While Helwani is right to point out the numerous obstacles in the way, it’s pretty telling of how far we’ve come for him to change his mind.

It would be an unprecedented move for the UFC to allow their superstar fighter to compete outside the organization, much less against a boxing legend like Mayweather. However, we’ve seen boxers enter MMA with very little MMA experience so perhaps that’s an avenue for both parties to look into. Mayweather knows McGregor wouldn’t look for a takedown in a MMA fight so it’d effectively be a striking match under MMA rules.

The Mayweather-McGregor discussion had slowed down considerably since the opening verbal salvos. However, Mayweather restarted those talks after appearing on ESPN’s First Take. As expected, the two clash of egos centers around the financial terms.

Both Mayweather and McGregor have their own arguments to make as to how the money should be split. Mayweather is a boxing legend and sports an unblemished record of 49-0 while McGregor has quickly become one of the biggest stars in MMA history. He recently became the only man to simultaneously hold two titles in the UFC.

While we’re a long ways away from this fight being official, where there’s money, there’s a way.