Sharpe: Conor McGregor can now demand $25 million per UFC fight after Dana White’s offer to fight Floyd Mayweather

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White recently stated that he’d be willing to offer Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather $25 million each to make the fight between the two mega stars happen, since $15 million just wasn’t enough for his star fighter. That was a bad move, according to Shannon Sharpe, who declared during a recent edition of "Skip and Shannon: Undisputed" (via FOX Sports) that in doing so, White gave "Notorious" so much leverage that he won’t be able to get his biggest star to compete for anything less than $25 million moving forward.

"If I'm Conor McGregor, I say I appreciate that Dana White because for the longest time you told me -- and you told everybody that would listen and every fight fan in the UFC -- Ronda Rousey is the biggest draw," Sharpe explained. "You just went on television -- or you went on radio -- and said, ‘Conor McGregor is the ‘A' side.' So whether I fight Floyd Mayweather or not, it's going to cost you $25 million plus a back end part of the pay-per-view going forward.

"That's all he's done, Sharpe continued. "Conor McGregor's going to double down now. I want to talk to you about a piece, but going forward it's $25 million for me to step into the ring and then we'll negotiate the back end on pay-per-view buys. Because if I'm the ‘A' guy, I don't really need Floyd because I'm the ‘A' guy. People are coming to see me."

Of course, that simply won’t happen, as the $25 million offer was an obvious one-off due because a high-profile circus fight between McGregor and Mayweather would light up the box office and the promotion would get its money back in spades. McGregor fighting anybody else in the mixed martial arts (MMA) arena, sadly, will never warrant a $25 million payday in this day and age, even if the company can afford it. And I’m not against fighters earning more money, more power to them, but to say "Notorious" can jump from a $3 million payout to $25 million per outing is just nonsense ... even if the mouthy Irishman can "sell fights like Muhammad Ali."

Plus, can you imagine the backlash from every single athlete on UFC's roster if McGregor did earn that kind of coin per bout? I highly-doubt the promotion wants to make that issue even bigger. Asking for a small piece of the company, well, that’s another story.