NBA star Dwight Howard is a huge UFC fan, and was Octagon-side at UFC 202, as featherweight champion Conor McGregor won a rematch with Nate Diaz. Afterwards, a TMZ Sports staffer caught up with him, and asked who would win a mixed martial arts fight with LeBron James?
Some NBA greats who are massive MMA fans, like Shaquille O’Neal, are too large to ever fight in the UFC. The heavyweight division cutoff is 265, and it is unlikely in the extreme that Shaq could drop 60 pounds.
However, 30-year-old Howard stands 6′ 11″ and weighs in at 265, so he is inb. James, 31, is 6′ 8′ and 250, so he’s in too.
“That’s tough,” began Howard respectfully. “Obviously, I have to go with myself. I can’t say, ‘LeBron’s gonna knock me out.’ I can’t do that.”
Back in 2013, when he played for the Houston Rockets, Howard named his price to fight in the UFC, in during a back stage discussion with UFC president Dana White – ten million dollars. Howard was at the time cageside for UFC 166: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos 3, in Houston, Tx.
I would get up there and fight,” said Howard. “If I get knocked out, I get knocked out. I’ll get back up one day.
The UFC boss was game.
I want to do that pay-per-view when you’re ready, man, said White.
Howard’s teammate Chandler Parsons said he would fight in the UFC too for $10,000,000, but he was not optimistic as to the outcome.
said he’d do the fight for $10 million but didn’t think it would go that well.
I would literally f***ing die, he said.
Mixed martial arts has seen fighters coming out of a background in wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, karate, boxing, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, and Sambo, among other martial arts. Other fighters have come out of football and hockey. The sport has been a little short of basketball based fighters.
Early heavyweight Wes Sims was a star center at Amanda-Clearcreek High School. UFC heavyweight Travis Browne was the 2000 Coastal North League Player of the Year when he went to high school in San Diego. But the sport is short basketball based fighters.
Make it happen Dana White!
But it has not be against someone at a similar level of experience, this is a fight he cannot win:
