Rogan breaks down McGregor-Mayweather

Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather are feeding the hype around a potential superfight. Photo / Twitter.

Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather have won. People are talking about a potential superfight between the biggest names in mixed martial arts and boxing - whether it's actually any chance of happening or not.

UFC commentator Joe Rogan spent a solid 15 minutes on his podcast discussing the fight which both McGregor and Mayweather have hyped in the past couple of days, breaking it down as a match-up and exploring why it might make financial sense from the UFC's point of view.

Rogan believes it would be a quick kill if McGregor and Mayweather met in a mixed martial arts fight, but gave the Irishman some hope of avoiding a knockout in a boxing match.

"If Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather fight in MMA, Conor McGregor will f*** him up," Rogan said. "He will f*** him up. Floyd will get the s*** kicked out of him. He will kick his body senseless. He will kick his legs. Floyd will be debilitated inside of one round, 100 per cent. And if Conor decides to take him to the ground, I guarantee you ... Floyd Mayweather cannot stop him from taking him to the ground. And if Conor gets him to the ground, he's going to mount him and cave his f***ing face in, or choke him, or break his arm, or do whatever he wants to do.

"But, in a boxing match, I can't imagine a world where Floyd Mayweather doesn't f*** (McGregor) up. I think Floyd Mayweather is arguably the greatest boxer of all time. If you look at his accomplishments, who he's been able to beat, how he shuts everyone's offence down ...

"He's just so much better. And if people don't know, if you think you're really good and then you get in there and box a guy like that, he will f***ing expose the s*** out of you. He will expose the s*** out of you. It's a different animal, man.

"But I mean, who knows man? One of the things we know about Conor is he has a ridiculous belief in himself and he has unbelievable power. One of the things we know about Floyd is he's 39. So when a guy turns 39, you never know. For every guy like Bernard Hopkins, there's a bunch of guys who the wheels just fall off and all of a sudden they can't take a punch anymore and they can't fight anymore, they don't move good anymore. But I can't imagine a world where he's not light years past Conor with boxing skill."

"The only thing that makes me think Conor can survive is he's a super dangerous puncher," Rogan added. "Maybe if Conor went straight into boxing, he could have been a world-class boxer, he could have been a real Ricky Hatton-type challenger. Entirely possible. But even Ricky Hatton got f***ed up by Mayweather, man. When Ricky Hatton was Ricky Hatton. When he was in his prime."

Rogan said the fight he expected Mayweather to make if he comes back for a 50th time is a rematch against Manny Pacquiao.

"But I also think Floyd Mayweather vs Conor would generate insane amounts of money. Insane. Who knows, man? Who knows?" he said.

"I don't think he can though. I would imagine, unless the UFC is involved, (or they let him out of his contract) and I can't imagine they would be willing to do that and I can't imagine that they would let him fight Floyd Mayweather. Dana (White) and Lorenzo and Frank (Fertitta) are serious boxing fanatics. They know a lot about boxing ... I wouldn't throw a fighter to the lions like that.

"I could be wrong. I'm no f***ing clairvoyant. I don't really know what's going to happen in a fight. But I think Mayweather is a ghost. You go to punch where Mayweather is, and Mayweather's not there anymore. And he's popping you with jabs and slowly getting you frustrated and setting traps. And the next thing you know, he's uncorking shots on you.

But who knows? Maybe Conor McGregor, if he went to straight boxing, could be even more successful than he is as an MMA fighter - because his best knockouts were with punches. His left hand is a f***ing piston. He has a nasty left hand. He's f***ed a lot of guys up. But is he f***ing a lot of guys up that are not at a level of boxing as say, a Timothy Bradley or a (Marcos) Maidana or Juan Manuel Marquez?"

UFC contracts are notoriously hard to get out of and White and the Fertittas have shown little interest in co-promoting events. But Rogan believed there is an option they might consider.

"If enough money gets thrown the UFC's direction, the UFC might look at it this way, here's a pragmatic way of looking at it: 'We can still make a lot of money with Conor McGregor. We can still make a lot of money with Conor McGregor in an MMA fight. We can still make a lot of money if Conor rematches Nate Diaz'," Rogan said.

"But is he gonna beat the best guys in the world now? After Nate Diaz boxed him up and choked him out, is that going to happen again? If that does happen again, how much will that deflate his value on the open market? If you're playing a game of chess, not looking at it in terms of a guy's career as an MMA fighter but looking at it as a game of financial chess, how do you move your piece?

"You might say, look the amount of money that you can make with the Mayweather fight is off the charts. Off the charts. You're talking about a three million pay-per-view buy or something crazy. So you do that, you move that up, you take that chance, and he gets boxed up by Mayweather and maybe he survives. If he survives and loses a f***ing decision and he goes back and he says 'All respect to Mayweather. Back to MMA.

I just didn't understand his hands. It's a learning experience.' and he has this great press conference. If he can survive, he's not diminished too much. And Mayweather's not a murderous puncher. He's not a Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin. Golovkin is a bad fight for him. Someone like that is a bad fight for him, a murderous puncher, because most likely they're gonna take him out. But Mayweather, it's very possible he is gonna get to the decision. If I was in his corner I would say, this can be done."

You can watch the discussion in the video player below. It starts around 2:02:00.