VEGAS UPDATE: MAYWEATHER TELLS ESPN HE’LL FIGHT MCGREGOR FOR $1OOM; R.I.P BUDDY GRECO, TRUMP AND MORE
Floyd Mayweather Jr. today confirmed on ESPN what I reported last Thursday: that negotiations have heated up for a Mayweather-Conor McGregor super fight. “Dana White, the UFC --- let’s make it happen,” Mayweather told ESPN’s First Take. “Bring him over to the boxing world, and I’ll show him what it’s like.”
That backs up what I quoted my source as saying, “It’s going to happen. It’s a sure thing. There’s too much money on the table not to do it.” Mayweather added on Wednesday: “Only thing I’m interested in is a Conor McGregor fight. I’m a business man and it makes business sense.”
McGregor has said he wants $100 million, the same number Mayweather, 49-0, is shooting for.
“We are willing to give him $15 million," said Mayweather," and then we can talk about splitting the percentage – the back end – on the pay-per-video. But of course we’re on the ‘A side,’” meaning he’s going to get the lion’s share.
“How can a guy talk about making 20 or 30 million if he’s never made 8 or 9 million in a fight?” said Mayweather, who retired in the fall of 2015 after tying Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record.
BRYANT, HARPER ATTEND EACH OTHER’S WEDDING
Among the star-studded guest list for the Kris Bryant-Jessica Delp wedding in Las Vegas last weekend was former youth baseball teammate Bryce Harper.
Both Bryant and Harper married high school sweethearts from Las Vegas.
Bryant, the National League’s MVP after leading the Chicago Cubs to their first world championship in 108 years, married Delp at the J.W. Marriott on Saturday.
The newly wed Harper attended with his wife, Kay Varner, a former soccer standout at Green Valley High School. They got married shortly before Christmas in the Mormon Temple in San Diego.
Harper was the National League MVP in 2015 at the age of 22, after hitting 42 home runs, batting .330 and driving in 99 runs.
Bryant, who turned 25 on Jan. 4, batted 292 with 39 homers, 102 RBI and led the NL in runs scored with 121.
BUDDY GRECO R.I.P.
Legendary jazz pianist Buddy Greco, who played on the Strip for years, died in a Las Vegas hospice on Tuesday.
He was 90 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease. His wife and musical partner, Lezlie Anders, said she placed IPad headphones on Greco on Monday and played his favorite music, including Frank Sinatra. Greco entered the hospice on Saturday. He and Anders had moved to Las Vegas in 2015 when his health started failing. One of Greco’s biggest early breaks came when he was hired at age 16 to tour with Benny Goodman’s orchestra for four years. His biggest hit came in 1962 when he sold a million copies of his version of “The Lady is a Tramp.” Greco and Anders met in the early 1990s at the Desert Inn, where they were both performing. They teamed up on stage after they got married in 1995. Anders told me one of her favorite stories about Greco’s feisty side as a performer. He was performing one night when someone threw an ice cube on stage from the balcony. Greco stopped, walked off stage and marched up to the balcony. An usher pointed out the culprit. Greco punched him in the nose. No funeral services are planned, Anders said.
WHY SOME COMEDIANS WON’T TACKLE TRUMP
Steve Hytner, who was a hoot on “Seinfeld” as a comedian who annoyed the L out of Jerry Seinfeld, is performing twice a night at the Tropicana’s Laugh Factory through Sunday.
I caught up to him at the Trop the other day and asked the man famous for the comedic line, “That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!” if he thought President Donald Trump was going to be gold for comedians.
Hytner said he’s read that some of his colleagues have reservations about talking about Trump.
“The thing is I'm reticent but not afraid,” said Hytner.
“But the way I feel about it is that it’s so polarizing. I’m not afraid of someone who thinks differently than I do. “But unless you are a political comedian, what do I get by going there for three minutes? Why do I need to split the room when that’s not the material I do anyway?
“So what I think they’re saying now is that people are afraid of doing Trump is that is doesn’t get them anything. It gets them a split room and that’s not what you’re looking for.” During his four-year run in "Seinfeld," Hytner played Kenny Bania, a character Seinfield “loved having in the show” but loathed Bania’s obnoxiousness. Hytner, who lives in Reno, said he appeared in the show about eight times but shot 12 or 13 episodes. On the occasions when Hytner’s character was edited out of an episode that ran long, Hytner said Seinfield would call him at home and apologize.