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Apparently Conor McGregor, the former UFC champion and one-time boxing opponent of Floyd Mayweather, sent a tweet offering to fight Mark Wahlberg — you know, the 48-year-old actor — and if you’re really interested in that nonsense, here’s a TMZ video about it, kinda. Mostly it seems to me that McGregor was screwing around on line after Justin Bieber challenged Tom Cruise to a fight, but whatever, GO DEEP, TMZ.
Regis Prograis is represented by Wahlberg, at least on paper. Most sites have to run this with “World champion boxer calls out Conor McGregor” because nobody outside boxing really knows who Regis Prograis is yet, but since we’re a mere and humble boxing site we can just say Regis Prograis, which is fun. Instead of a concept, he’s a man!
But Prograis (24-0, 20 KO) did indeed take to his Instagram to dramatically punch some old tires and make a stern challenge to McGregor.
“I’m hearing that Conor McGregor is trying to fight my manager Mark Wahlberg. Look here, don’t call out no actors, dog. Call out a real fighter. We’ll do a two-fight deal. I’ll fight you in the ring first, I’m definitely gonna whoop your ass. Then I’m going to fight you in the Octagon and whoop your ass in there. Don’t call out actors, dog, call out a real world champion. I’m gonna hurt your ass.”
Prograis trains in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and he is a world class boxer, so I suppose he wouldn’t be totally awful in MMA in theory, but then McGregor trains in boxing and we’ve seen him box a world-class boxer, so I suspect Prograis would have issues at the highest level of MMA.
So let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that they did this. I will right now, in front of God and everybody, boldly predict that the boxing man would win the boxing fight quite handily and the MMA man would win the MMA fight quite handily.
Anyway, back in reality, Prograis is set to face Josh Taylor (15-0, 12 KO) this fall in a meeting of the world’s top two 140-pound fighters, unifying the WBA and IBF titles in the World Boxing Super Series tournament final, which will stream live on DAZN.