It’s finally fight week for Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. After a long build-up, MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes discuss expectations and reality in this week’s Trading Shots.

Fowlkes: Today is Sunday, Danny. That means one week from now we’ll finally be on the other side of this McGregor-Mayweather business. What I ask of you now is to look into that not-so-distant future. Picture yourself one week from today, a hundred bucks poorer but finally armed with real knowledge of that which we’ve been so busy speculating on lo these many weeks.

What’s one thing you hope you will have gotten out of the experience by the time we reconvene next Sunday? Separately, what’s one thing you can say you definitely expect to get out of it?

Downes: My biggest hope is to be entertained. I make a mean taco dip, but that can’t entertain people over the course of 12 rounds. This fight doesn’t have to look like it belongs in the “Rocky” franchise, but there needs to be some drama.

It’s the same attitude I have going into every UFC card I watch, but the stakes here are greater. Not because it’s an extra $40, but because it serves as a justification.

If a UFC card stinks or falls short, we can shrug our shoulders and get ready for the next one. By buying this fight, we chose the circus over legitimate sport.

If the fight delivers something competitive, we can pat ourselves on the back and pretend that we weren’t suckers the whole time. If the fight turns out to be the one-sided embarrassment many predict, then those of us who purchased Mayweather vs. McGregor have no shelter. We would be rightly embarrassed that we let the spectacle conquer our better reasoning.

What I definitely expect to happen is that nobody will be happy or change their minds. No matter the result, we will learn no greater lesson from this fight. Boxing purists will still look down on MMA fighters and fans. Even if McGregor wins, we’ll hear the excuses about Mayweather being 40 years old. The claims that no MMA fighter can box with a “real” boxer will still fly. The McGregor apologists will trumpet whatever happens.

A victorious McGregor would further prove that “Mystic Mac” is a once-in-human-history athlete. If he loses, he’s still a brilliant promotional genius who had the guts to compete against the best boxer of this generation. This isn’t an episode of “G.I Joe,” Ben. We’re not going to learn a lesson by the end of it.

What about you? Are you expecting to get some fulfillment out of the MayMac experiment? What are you hoping comes to fruition?

Fowlkes: I agree that McGregor’s ride-or-die fans will stick with him no matter what, but you’re underselling what a McGregor win would mean. Mayweather may be 40, but he’s still Mayweather. If an MMA fighter beats him in his pro boxing debut, that would be earth-shattering stuff.

People are already out there writing songs about McGregor. If he beats Mayweather they’ll carve his face into the side of a mountain.

My hopes are not so different from yours. Mostly I’d like to not wake up next Sunday morning feeling like I got taken by a giant scam. This can be accomplished in a few different ways. If McGregor can at least make it competitive, that’ll be enough. If he can force Mayweather to really get aggressive and try to put him away to make a point, that also might do it. I need to see something that feels important, in one way or another, because otherwise the only momentous thing here is how much of our money we gave these people.

As for what I expect? Basically one big game of “I told you so,” and that’s true no matter how the fight turns out. It’s just a question of who will get to do the telling.

If McGregor gets blown out, it’ll be all the people who called this a farce from the beginning. If he wins, his already pretty insufferable fans will reach incredible new levels of insufferability. Matter of fact, if he even hangs tough and makes a fight out of it, I’m prepared to wake up the next morning to a bunch of obnoxious tweets from people with Twitter handles like @McGregorIsGod999.

What’s weird is that, as I sit here writing this a week out, what I really want is to just get this over with already. The build-up seems like it has lasted years, and I’m ready for a world where MMA websites are not overrun with constant MayMac coverage.

But I also wonder how we’ll feel when it really is over. The event of the year, over and done with, and then, what, we turn around and hype ourselves up for Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov in Rotterdam? I really can’t tell if we’ll be glad to get back to our regularly scheduled (if comparatively boring and predictable) programming, or if we’ll spend the next weeks or even months in a hype hangover that we can’t recover from.

Downes: The problem with hype is that things rarely live up to it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a “Star Wars” movie or Mayweather vs. McGregor, the buildup creates unrealistic expectations. Even if our wishes are met and it’s a competitive fight, we’ll still be disappointed.

When you head into an event with low expectations, there’s a chance that you’ll be pleasantly surprised and walk away with an overall positive outlook, but I don’t think that’s possible with this fight. If the match itself exceeds our predictions, there’s an extra level of cynicism that’s difficult break. The way you mock Struve vs. Volkov is very different from the way you mock Mayweather vs. McGregor.

What the MMA landscape looks like in the post MayMac world is an important question. This circus has controlled both mainstream and MMA-specific media for a long time. Whenever the momentum was starting to wane, Mayweather and McGregor found a way to get themselves into the news. While McGregor the personality has been at the forefront, the UFC and MMA as a whole have received some of the residual glory.

We laugh at Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe sharing their ignorant views on TV, but that type of attention isn’t always bad. The elusive “mainstream fans” get their information from mainstream outlets. The path of MMA expansion will come from ESPN and FOX Sports, not The Speed Bag.

James Toney vs. Randy Couture is a footnote of MMA history. I don’t see Mayweather vs. McGregor following that path. Rightly or wrongly, people will look at Saturday as a major pivot point. Will it be a sign of decline?

The fact that a gimmick fight between a 40-year-old former boxing champ and your two-division MMA champ is the biggest thing on the calendar shows the weakness of the brand. You have to shut down your whole operation for a month to push one individual so you can make some money back on your investment.

Than again, maybe this bet will pay off. It will legitimize the sport in the eyes of detractors and create a cultural moment that will live on in every documentary about the turbulent 2010s. Perhaps it’s a lot of pressure to put on a single event, but I believe the sport of MMA is at a crossroads. Mayweather vs. McGregor is going to take us down a path, and we’ll find out which one next week.

For more on “The Money Fight: Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor,” check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who has also written for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.

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