Conor McGregor is vowing to knock Floyd Mayweather Jr. clean out in their fight in exactly 1 month from now on August 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. McGregor is ready for anything Mayweather wants to try in their fight.
If Mayweather tries to hold him, he’s going to wish he hadn’t, because McGregor is going to make things miserable for him. Trying to clinch a highly skilled MMA fighter is a lot different than trying to clinch a boxer. McGregor has some different tricks he’s going to be using on the 40-year-old Mayweather if he falls back into his old tried and true pattern of clinching constantly.
McGregor, 29, is going to give Mayweather something to think about if he tries that old habit. The hardcore boxing knows full well about Mayweather’s tendency to hold his opponents to keep them from getting their shots off. McGregor is not going to take it lying down if Mayweather decides he wants to limit his punch output.
McGregor says that after he knocks Mayweather out, he’ll give him a rematch but it might possibly need to take place in the octagon in the UFC. Mayweather would have to earn his $100 million the hard way if he fights McGregor in the UFC under the rules of that organization. Mayweather’s training camp would be a cram course on grappling, submission holds and jiu-jitsu.
It would be a lot for Mayweather to take in during an 8 week training camp on learning UFC. Mayweather would need to prove the old saying is wrong about ‘Old dogs can’t learn new tricks. It would be surprising if Mayweather would even agree to a second fight against McGregor if he loses the first fight. It would be really tough on Mayweather to try and absorb enough MMA skills to give him a chance against McGregor. But the good news would be that Mayweather wouldn’t be lacking for a real challenge in his life.
Mayweather wouldn’t be bored in having to learn how to fight in the octagon. But at the end of the day, I’d be very surprised if he ever agreed to take the fight unless he was badly in need of money. With the tax problem rumors about Mayweather needing money to pay off an IRS bill, it’s certainly possible he could come back for one final fight against McGregor in the octagon, but it would likely need to be some kind of revenge match on Mayweather’s part for him to do that.
Mayweather vs. McGregor will be taking place on Saturday, August 26at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Nevada. The start time is at 6:00 p.m. PT/9:00 p.m. ET.
Mayweather-McGregor will be shown on Showtime pay-per-view, which is where the majority of the American boxing fans will be seeing the fight. Getting tickets to the fight to see it live is just not in the cards for a lot of fans. Seeing Mayweather vs. McGregor on closed circuit is also something most fans won’t be bothering with. They want to be able to see the two stars fight while watching it at the comforts of their homes.
They can only hope that there aren’t any problems with Showtime’s ability to show the fight. Where I live, my local cable company was overwhelmed with people ordering the Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight on HBO and Showtime PPV. It wiped out the cable for the evening, and I couldn’t see anything. Hopefully this doesn’t happen for the Mayweather-McGregor fight.
McGregor wants to put a serious hurting on Mayweather to make sure he doesn’t have a chance of doing anything in the fight. It makes sense for McGregor to try and knock Mayweather out, as if the fight goes to the scorecard, I’s going to be extremely difficult for McGregor to get a decision unless he knocks Mayweather down a number of times.
“I look forward to Aug. 26 because the whole world is in for a shock,” McGregor said via espn.com. “He’s a scared man. When he wakes up after the KO, maybe if he wants the rematch he might have to do it in the Octagon.”
McGregor shocking the world would be a real blow to the legacy of Mayweather. He’s carefully manufactured his boxing career to get to this point to keep him unbeaten and on the verge of beating Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record that he set many years ago. Larry Holmes was on the verge of breaking the record when he was beaten by Michael Spinks.
If Mayweather loses to McGregor, you would have to think there’s a jinx on the 49-0 record. Some records aren’t meant to be broken. You would have to think the 49-0 record is the most attainable record to break in boxing due to the soft match-making that is done by promoters nowadays. This isn’t like the old days where the best had to fight the best.
Mayweather hasn’t been matched like boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson, who moved up in weight and fought the best fighters he could during his career. We never saw Mayweather fight Gennady Golovkin, Paul Williams, Antonio Margarito, Kostya Tszyu, Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Kell Brook or Shawn Porter. We never saw Mayweather fight Manny Pacquiao while the Filipino star was still in the prime of his career.
If McGregor can stop Mayweather from breaking the 49-0 record, it would be a big letdown for the “Money” man. I don’t know that the casual boxing fans would care too much about Mayweather being stopped from getting win No.50, as the casual fans don’t care about meaningless records. They just want to see good fights.
“I hope he brings it. I’ll be prepared,” said McGregor about Mayweather. ”He’ll either come forward and be aggressive and get hit and then run, or he’ll run and be hit and go aggressive. I’ll be prepared for everything,” McGregor said. “Make no mistake, he’ll be sparked unconscious.”
McGregor’s best chance of knocking out Mayweather is to land a shot punch while he’s in close. If McGregor can get Mayweather in a clinch and nail him with a powerful left hand from point blank range, then he definitely could hurt him. I don’t know if McGregor is capable of generating the power needed for him to and a knockout blow from in close.
McGregor has obviously worked a lot in the past in throwing shot punches from close range when he has an opponent trapped against the cage in the octagon. If McGregor can throw shots with authority with only 1 to 2 foot distance from Mayweather, then he could get a knockout in this fight. Mayweather won’t be able to avoid clinching because that’s a big part of his game. Once Mayweather starts holding, McGregor can brain him with a big shots and then finish him off when he’s stunned.
”I understand small details only me and the opponent see,” said McGregor. ”I’m very confident that whether it’s a ring or an octagon, where I’ve spent most of my time, I know how to move around the ring and find my way to the knockout victory.”
It’s crucial that McGregor be able to move around the boxing ring like a man with a purpose on August 26. If he’s uncertain and clueless in how to get around the ring to try and force Mayweather to fight, then this fight could turn out to be a real mismatch. It might be a mismatch anyway. I don’t think it will though. Mayweather is old at 40, and he’s coming off of 2 years of inactivity to face one of the biggest punchers in the UFC in McGregor.
Mayweather isn’t like a normal fighter that has been out of the boxing ring for 2 years. Mayweather has been out of the ring enjoying being a wealthy multi-millionaire. There’s a difference. When you’ve got the kind of cash that Mayweather has, it definitely takes something out of you. I think it’s going to be a real shock to Mayweather when he gets back inside the ring and starts taking heavy blows from a younger, hungrier, bigger, stronger and more active McGregor.
I see this fight being a lot like Sugar Ray Leonard’s final fight when he came back to fight Hector Camacho on March 1, 1997. Leonard had been out of the ring for 6 years since his loss to Terry Norris in 1991. Camacho was far from the best fighter in boxing at the time, but he still easily beat Leonard by a 5th round knockout. Leonard never fought again after that fight. This is the same Camacho who had previously beaten by Felix Trinidad, Greg Haugen and Julio Cesar Chavez. Camacho was soundly beaten by Chavez. You can understand why Leonard was willing to fight Camacho given how easily Chavez beat him. Chavez was an active fighter. Leonard wasn’t. Mayweather is in the same boat as Leonard was in with him coming back after 2 years out of the ring to fight McGregor. I think it’s a bridge too far for Mayweather. A fighter can only come back from inactivity so many times before they finally get beaten.
McGregor being able to hurt Mayweather with his left hand would be huge. McGregor’s UFC boss Dana White notes that McGregor has always been able to hurt his opponents right away in the octagon when he hits them with his powerful left hand. They’re hurt immediately, but that’s with McGregor wearing 4 oz. gloves. We don’t know if Mayweather is going to be able to do the same thing in boxing with regular gloves for the Mayweather fight. McGregor might not be able to hurt Mayweather with the boxing gloves. Mayweather is obviously going to be picking out the gloves for the fight, and he’ll no doubt be selecting non-punchers’ gloves with plenty of padding.