Apparently, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor weren’t messing around when they said they had no problem wearing smaller boxing gloves for their upcoming fight.
Bob Bennett, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, confirmed to ESPN on Wednesday that both Mayweather and McGregor have submitted official requests to wear 8-ounce gloves when they square off Aug. 26 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Mayweather and McGregor are scheduled to compete at 154 pounds, and per Nevada regulations, any fight contested above 147 pounds must use 10-ounce gloves, hence why the fighters needed to make official requests.
“Both camps have submitted a waiver by the date we requested, which was today,” Bennett told ESPN on Wednesday. “The commission will hear both camps’ reasoning as to why it should deviate from its regulations during a scheduled meeting on Aug. 16. Our chairman Anthony Marnell will then lead a conversation with the other commission members and they will vote on it that day.”
Glove size has been an issue since last month’s promotional world tour, when Mayweather responded to McGregor’s taunts by saying on stage that he’d wear 8-ounce gloves or even 4-ounce gloves if that’s what the UFC lightweight champion preferred. The back-and-forth reached new heights last week, though, when Mayweather called for 8-ounce gloves on social media and McGregor fired back by saying he doesn’t “give a f— about the size of the glove.”
While the NSAC ultimately could rule against the use of smaller gloves, it’s still interesting to see both Mayweather and McGregor going to such lengths to tweak the rules less than three weeks before their fight.
Thumbnail photo via Tom Szczerbowski/USA TODAY Sports Images
