LAS VEGAS: The carnival finally hit town Tuesday, with Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Jr. putting on a bit of a fashion show before promising to knock each other out in their highly anticipated boxing match.
Mayweather wore a fedora and gold rimmed glasses while McGregor sported a three-piece suit and tie and aviator sunglasses as they made separate appearances before a crowd of several hundred people in front of the arena where they will fight Saturday night.
The two got into an unplanned verbal confrontation as they moved between the outdoor stage and the arena, though it was brief. Bodyguards kept them apart and both fighters are smart enough not to do anything to jeopardize their immense paydays from what could be the richest fight ever.
“It’s work,” Mayweather said when asked if he was having fun. “My job is to be a fighter.”
McGregor, meanwhile, reiterated his vow to knock Mayweather out within two rounds, and claimed the boxer was getting desperate in making comments about his weight and stamina.
“Let him keep praying about weight and fatigue. All he’s doing is praying,” McGregor said. “But he’s praying to the new god of boxing.”
The crowd for one of the final promotional events was small and not terribly vocal, especially after waiting an hour or two in 100-degree heat to see the fighters. There was no one in line at T-Mobile Arena’s three ticket windows, where plenty of expensive tickets remain for the bout.
The big money for the two fighters will come from pay-per-view sales, and early indications are that it could break all records. Some 50 million people may watch in the US alone, with millions more tuning in worldwide.
Estimates vary wildly, but Mayweather could pocket $200 million, while McGregor might make $100 million.
The promotion has been more circus-like than anything, but both boxers said they were serious about putting on an explosive show on fight night.
“This fight is not going to go the distance,” Mayweather said.
“I believe I’ll knock him out early, one or two rounds,” McGregor said.
Both fighters seemed relaxed and confident, just days away from a fight that seemed improbable at times and impossible at other times. Yet they will meet under boxing rules in a scheduled 12-round fight that matches a UFC champion who has never boxed professionally against the master defensive fighter of his time.
McGregor said it was just another progression in his fighting career, and chided Mayweather for saying he hopes the referee does his job and does not allow McGregor to try any mixed martial arts moves against him.
“I may make him beg me to follow the rules,” McGregor said.
Mayweather said he expected McGregor to come out wildly and use roughhouse tactics, something Marcos Maidana did effectively when he fought Mayweather in 2014. But he said the Irish fighter cannot keep that up for 12 rounds and does not understand what it is to get hit by a real boxing champion.
“When he gets hit he’ll find out it’s totally different,” Mayweather said.
While looking as fit as ever and insisting he is taking the fight seriously, Mayweather said he will be doing meet-and-greet experiences every night living up to the fight at his new strip club just off the Las Vegas Strip.
“I’ll be at the Girl Collection every day this week,” he said. “Every day.”
Carnival hits town as Mayweather and McGregor get ready to rumble
Carnival hits town as Mayweather and McGregor get ready to rumble
These shy, scaly anteaters are the most trafficked mammals in the world
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: They are hunted for their unique scales, and the demand makes them the most trafficked mammal in the world.
Wildlife conservationists are again raising the plight of pangolins, the shy, scaly anteaters found in parts of Africa and Asia, on World Pangolin Day on Saturday.
Pangolins or pangolin products outstrip any other mammal when it comes to wildlife smuggling, with more than half a million pangolins seized in anti-trafficking operations between 2016 and 2024, according to a report last year by CITES, the global authority on the trading of endangered plant and animal species.
The World Wildlife Fund estimates that over a million pangolins were taken from the wild over the last decade, including those that were never intercepted.
Pangolins meat is a delicacy in places, but the driving force behind the illegal trade is their scales, which are made of keratin, the protein also found in human hair and fingernails. The scales are in high demand in China and other parts of Asia due to the unproven belief that they cure a range of ailments when made into traditional medicine.
There are eight pangolin species, four in Africa and four in Asia. All of them face a high, very high or extremely high risk of extinction.
While they’re sometimes known as scaly anteaters, pangolins are not related in any way to anteaters or armadillos.
They are unique in that they are the only mammals covered completely in keratin scales, which overlap and have sharp edges. They are the perfect defense mechanism, allowing a pangolin to roll up into an armored ball that even lions struggle to get to grip with, leaving the nocturnal ant and termite eaters with few natural predators.
But they have no real defense against human hunters. And in conservation terms, they don’t resonate in the way that elephants, rhinos or tigers do despite their fascinating intricacies — like their sticky insect-nabbing tongues being almost as long as their bodies.
While some reports indicate a downward trend in pangolin trafficking since the COVID-19 pandemic, they are still being poached at an alarming rate across parts of Africa, according to conservationists.
Nigeria is one of the global hot spots. There, Dr. Mark Ofua, a wildlife veterinarian and the West Africa representative for the Wild Africa conservation group, has rescued pangolins for more than a decade, which started with him scouring bushmeat markets for animals he could buy and save. He runs an animal rescue center and a pangolin orphanage in Lagos.
His mission is to raise awareness of pangolins in Nigeria through a wildlife show for kids and a tactic of convincing entertainers, musicians and other celebrities with millions of social media followers to be involved in conservation campaigns — or just be seen with a pangolin.
Nigeria is home to three of the four African pangolin species, but they are not well known among the country’s 240 million people.
Ofua’s drive for pangolin publicity stems from an encounter with a group of well-dressed young men while he was once transporting pangolins he had rescued in a cage. The men pointed at them and asked him what they were, Ofua said.
“Oh, those are baby dragons,” he joked. But it got him thinking.
“There is a dark side to that admission,” Ofua said. “If people do not even know what a pangolin looks like, how do you protect them?”
