I've become less, and less interested in boxing the more that I've gotten into UFC over the years. But, I am interested in hearing what seasoned, die hard boxing fans actually think of these cross over events that have happened over the last few years. Conor, Logan Paul, and Jake Paul. Obviously, there has always been white collar boxing events, and cross overs from different sports, but it seems its becoming more frequent recently, with some MMA fighters showing a desire to get involved with Boxing simply because you earn more money.
I'm not exactly a die hard and more of a casual fan but I don't mind them. Depends on who's fighting. Most aren't worth watching but some of them are interesting if not just for the novelty factor and anything can happen in these fights and people always tune in for the potential upset when it's a mismatch like the Logan/Mayweather bout. They'll only become more popular as people realise how much money is to be made but if people don't like them then they don't have to watch them but even half of the people who complain about them probably still tune in for it whether they pay for it or not.
To be honest, if Connor does keep losing I think he'll just resort to these cross-sport match-ups as he knows they'll be big paydays and much more than he's getting in the UFC. At least he can choose his own opponents rather than having to get Dana's blessing.
You could probably argue that Conor is bigger than the UFC. Even when he loses, his stock still manages to be about the same, due to his exploits earlier in his career. I'm not sure I like Conor's personality, and out of the octagon persona, but I can't help but watch his fights, and actually root for him to win. The guy is one of the most skilled, and aesthetically pleasing fighters there is. Probably one of the best strikers to ever walk into the cage, and because of these reasons he knows that money will follow him regardless of the results. Which is actually what I think has caused him to not have that same passion he had several years ago, since he was chasing money back then. Now money practically chases him.
He's still going to be one of the biggest draws but that isn't going to last forever and if he keep losing people will lose interest not to mention Connor will probably lose interest first. It's hard to keep walking into the ring when you've probably got a hundred million+ in the bank, especially if you keep losing. Connor still has an ego and probably doesn't want to be labelled a bum. There will be people who will quickly take his place in the superstar category. Francis Ngannou is probably the most exciting fighter right now and if that fight with Jon Jones ever happens it'll probably break UFC records. I'd actually like to see Ngannou fight someone like Tyson Fury as even though he's no where close to being a better boxer than him there's probably not many people he can't knock out if he lands one of those bombs he throws. Fury seems to potentially be interested in the fitght as well which makes me optimistic that it could happen. Ngannou needs a couple more wins under his belt and Tyson needs to get the Wilder rematch and then probably the AJ fights out of the way but after that I could see him taking these big money cross over fights as there'll be no worthwhile opponents left for him really.