Yeah but who cares? Mayweather has never said he could do that (to my knowledge at least). It was the other guy spouting off that he could beat Mayweather at his own sport. He couldn't.
It was a pretty solid fight (better than Floyd's last one) but I still think McGregor is getting too much credit. Look, he boxed well for the first 3 rounds. Mayweather was going pure defense and letting him get tired and then he took over. By round 9, McGregor was holding on for dear life and was slowing down majorly. In round 10 he was done.
10 rounds is 10 rounds but I don't necessarily agree with the people that think he looked strong up until the stoppage. He looked good for 3-4 rounds and clearly lost the others. That's not a very long time. He started off strong and then went straight downhill which is basically what everyone predicted so where is the surprise? People said he couldn't last 12 rounds and he didn't. Mayweather isn't really a power guy, I don't think anyone thought he'd KO McGregor.
I keep reading that McGregor did better than everyone thought. What? Really? This fight went literally exactly as expected. For it being "a lot closer than it should have been" - not really, a 40-year old defensive fighter is gonna have a boxing match like that against anyone who knows at least something about how to fight. Money's gameplan was definitely to tire him out and then pick him apart.
Either way, it doesn't really matter as I couldn't really care less about either fighter and now that it's over I'm glad we can move on.
The two bolded statements are incongruous. The 2nd one states that Mayweather would have that fight against anyone who knows how to box. Yet the first one said this fight was better, so assumedly closer, than his last one. That means McGreggor did better than the last fighter who was a pro-boxer by trade with 33 fights under his belt at the time.
I absolutely cannot comment on how he looked prior to the stoppage, because I didn't watch the fight. I skimmed a couple round by round blogs for a recap. 3 of the 4 had the fight 4-4 in the 8th, the other had it 5-3. Yes, it probably was a brilliant strategy by Flloyd to tire out McGreggor, but its not an impressive one. The current best pound for pound boxer and one of the GOATs, should not have to tire out a neophyte.
As many people who said McGreggor would win, said Mayweather would destroy him. There was a fight doctor making noise that the fight shouldn't have even been sanctioned much less with lighter gloves because he said McGreggor was absolutely going to get hurt. It was a lot closer than that. And Mayweather obviously gave McGreggor at least a punchers chance, because he did take the defensive strategy instead of straight-up out boxing him.
The thing about whether a Mayweather could survive in an MMA ring is more about the larger argument between MMA and boxing fans than anything Floyd said. Hardcore boxing fans and MMA fans have argued for years about which is the most pure combat sport. MMA fans have said that the sheer amount of things to defend makes MMA harder to master while boxing fans talk about how difficult it is to perfect that one thing. There is some truth to both. But the fact that an MMA fighter gave the GOAT a closer match than some pro-boxers, imo, adds fuel to the Tap-out shirt crowd (which is what I was addressing).
Summed up perfectly. Im no boxing fan but my dad is, and he talked my head off about it. This is what was expected to happen. McGregor is a hype machine and wasn't going to win even though between my friends, they thought he would. I laff'd
McGreggor is absolutely a hype machine. Normally that is great and adds to the suspense and entertainment. This fight turned me off a bit with how much hype, and how manufactured it was. That's why I didn't bother going to a sports bar to watch it, even though I could have gotten a table reserved at my favorite local bar. All-in-all though, the hype totally worked for him. He hyped himself into a $30M payday, which is huge for an MMA star. I believe McGreggor had the record at $3M for most ever earned for an MMA fight (which was a non-title out-of-weight-class fight with Diaz). MMA rakes in much less than the premiere boxing matches. And Mcgreggor absolutely has to be his own hype man because that's how MMA works. McGreggor doesn't have Don King promoting his fights like Tyson did back in boxings heyday. Its all on him and his team. That's just how the UFC works, they give the fighters the platform to promote themselves. An MMAs stars success is as directly related to self-promotion as it is to fighting ability. There are better pound-for-pound MMA fighters than McGreggor (although he is very good), yet he gets paid the most and gets to set his own matches. He can do that, because whatever he puts his hype behind, sells and makes Dana White and his opponent a lot of money.
I am not a fan of either fighter. I enjoy both sports casually. I tend to side more with the Tap-out shirt guys on MMA being much more difficult to master. And from what I have heard, the fight was much more credible than I imagined, which means McGreggor did a fairly good job given the challenges he faced. According to some, he actually outboxed Mayweather for a few rounds. Even though Mayweathers strategy played into that, it is still a feet very few people in the world could accomplish.