Boxer Floyd Mayweather this week discussed competing in mixed martial arts.
Mark Cuban -- owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and a mixed martial arts promotional company -- confirmed the meeting after the Mavericks game on Friday.
"We're definitely going to work together," Cuban said. "It's just a question of in what capacity. You just don't jump from being a boxer to an MMA fighter overnight. He's got to test the waters."
The 30-year-old Mayweather rivals Bernard Hopkins as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and boxing's No. 1 drawing card. His fights this year with Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya generated 3.25 million pay-per-view buys, more than US$200 million in revenue and earned him about US$50 million.
Cuban's promotional company HDNet Fights has put on two events so far, the latest in Dallas on Dec. 15. The bouts are shown on Cuban's HDNet.
"It would be huge," Cuban said. "He's an icon in boxing. He's conquered that world. He is the champ and he wants to be the biggest grossing all-time champ as well. ... Having him work with MMA and HDNet Fights would be huge. It would take it to a whole other level."
Mayweather and Cuban became friends when they were contestants this year on the celebrity ballroom dancing talent show Dancing with the Stars. Cuban was Mayweather's guest at the Hatton fight in Las Vegas on Dec. 8 when Mayweather knocked out the Englishman to retain his World Boxing Council welterweight title.
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Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Coco Gauff’s dreams of a first women’s singles title in Melbourne were crushed in the quarter-finals by Paula Badosa. World No. 2 Alexander Zverev was ruffled by a stray feather in his men’s singles quarter-final, but he refocused to beat 12th seed Tommy Paul and reach the semi-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to advance the semi-finals. Hsieh and Ostapenko converted eight of 14 break
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