It was never, ever going to be just enough for the fight between Conor McGregor and convicted domestic abuser Floyd Mayweather to be merely for pride and an extremely large amount of money. In fact, that it’s taken this long for a physical trophy to be produced for the prospective winner feels like an oversight.
Still, here we are today with a peek at the actual, physical belt that’s gonna be on the line come Sunday.
Though there’s no actual championships at stake – McGregor currently holds an undefeated boxing record of 0-0 and convicted domestic abuser Mayweather had to relinquish his titles when he “retired” a couple of years back – the WBC has nonetheless gone ahead and produced a special belt for the bout. And it is eye-watering in its opulence.
Dubbed the “Money Belt,” the incredibly gaudy strap reportedly contains the following:
- 3,360 diamonds.
- 600 sapphires.
- 100 emeralds.
- 1.5kg of solid 24k gold.
- A pure alligator leather strap.
‘Think people understand what this fight is really about?’
‘Yes. We made it very obvious.’
‘I don’t know. I feel like we could do more…’ pic.twitter.com/IAJyDZUU1P— Ben Fowlkes (@benfowlkesMMA) August 23, 2017
Christ almighty.
WBC head honcho Mauricio Sulaiman unveiled the belt during this morning’s remarkably subdued press conference, stating that the medallion is deliberately off-centre “to preserve the style of the alligator.” Nice to know it’s the animal’s spirit that’s at the forefront of design concerns here.
The belt, as outrageously over-the-top as it is, is still something of an ancillary prize for the two fighters, who stand to make a metric tonne of cash from the bout.
McGregor is rumoured to be pulling in somewhere in the vicinity of USD$100million for his professional boxing debut, while convicted domestic abuser Mayweather is supposedly pocketing a cool USD$300million-ish for his troubles. That said, the exact purse amounts might never be publicly known, thanks to some timely non-disclosure agreements signed by the athletes in the lead-up to the fight.
The boxing match between a boxer and someone else goes down on Sunday (Australian time), with PPV broadcasts beginning at around 11am.
