Conor McGregor is a showman, a tough customer and a brilliant mixed martial artist. On Saturday night in Las Vegas he showed he could box too. But not nearly well enough to beat Floyd Mayweather, one of the all-time greats of the game.
Mayweather, out of retirement at age 40, won the fight on a 10th round TKO to take his record to 50-0. McGregor, a 4-1 underdog with bookies, but 100-1 with many boxing experts, proved he wasn’t hopelessly overmatched in a sport he had never before competed in professionally.
Mayweather’s strategy seemed to be to frustrate McGregor for long enough to exhaust him, then finish the job. It worked. “Our game plan was to take our time, then take him out at the end, down the stretch,” Mayweather said after the fight.
McGregor looked sharp in the first rounds, landing some blows, although also missing many because of Mayweather’s vaunted defense. As the rounds went by, though, he began to get sluggish, leaving openings for Mayweather to hit him again and again.
By round 10, he seemed almost out on his feet, and when Mayweather landed a series of blows with McGregor on the ropes, referee Robert Byrd stopped the fight. McGregor lost the fight, but he never went down.
I didn't see the fight but adding up the judges scorecards as described in this article , Mayweather was winning 25-5 . That is not a close fight.
There is a theory that Mayweather wanted to stretch the fight out to give the pay for view audience their moneys worth, and that McGregor simply cannot punch hard enough to hurt a trained boxer.
It will be interesting to see the post-fight analysis.
Pretty much every expert scorecard I saw had it much closer. Either 5-4 or 6-3 for Mayweather going into the 10th. Given the amount of money vegas was going to lose if mcgregor won, it's not surprising that the scoring was so lopsided for mayweather. There was no way vegas judges would torch the casinos.
It was a better fight than I expected, certainly more entertaining than mayweather pacqiao. it's quite an accomplishment for a guy with zero fights under his belt to last 10 competitive rounds with one of the greatest fighters of his generation. He was game but ultimately outclassed.
Mcgregor simply didn't have the necessary stamina and was visibily exhausted by the sixth. It also didn't look like he threw very heavy punches, as mayweather started walking through them after the first few rounds. Mayweather fought much more straight line than I've ever seen him as it seemed he decided mcgregor simply could not hurt him.
It was simple, McGregor didn't have the punching power, skill or stamina to compete with Mayweather.
A real fight is upcoming soon when two outstanding middleweights meet. GGG vs Canelo Alverez. Both fighters have excellent boxing skills, both are power punchers with either hand and have strong jaws.
This will be a great match. Mayweather and McGregor was a show, not a match.
The GGG vs Canelo could be another Hearns vs Hagler....
I was surprised McGregor won a couple rounds. I thought he'd be shutout.
Let's hope the GGG fight is half as good as Hearns-Hagler.
The 1st round of the Hagler Hearns is considered one of the greatest rounds in boxing history.
Half as good would be great, Sean.