If the defeat of Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa by Floyd Mayweather last week seemed like a farce to you then look away now.
The RIZIN 14 fighter, 20, has now been challenged to an MMA bout by the Irishman Conor McGregor in a late-night tweet.
"I wish to go to Tokyo to face Tenshin Nasukawa in a Mixed Martial Arts exhibition bout. Before this summer," McGregor tweeted as last night ticked into this morning.
"Please arrange this, this instant. Yours sincerely. The champ champ."
The former two-weight UFC champion never misses a trick when it comes to self-promotion and it’s not yet clear whether this is anything more than another example of him keeping his name doing the rounds.
Nasukawa was undone in facile fashion by the retired Mayweather in an exhibition bout in Tokyo under boxing rules. The undefeated American, 50-0, put the home crowd’s favourite down three times before his team threw in the towel. A fight that had been scheduled to go three, three-minute rounds didn’t last one and was stopped after 140 seconds.
Mayweather scooped a reported $9M for that and it’s no surprise that his old foe McGregor has been sniffing around for scraps at the table of the RIZN 14 organisation.
While the ability to throw his feared kicks would help the Japanese fighter’s cause in any potential bout with McGregor, the size difference between the pair would be startling. Even Mayweather, a much smaller man than the Irishman, looked bulky upsides the youngster.
Nasukawa has been reflecting on the first loss in his career this week, “I learned that I didn't work hard enough to earn this opportunity, and I will use this defeat to improve myself and move forward this year,” he said.