Mayweather says he knows how McGregor will fight him

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower: Floyd Mayweather Jr. appears to have someone in Conor McGregor’s camp that has given him the game plan for how he’ll be trying to beat him on August 26. Mayweather, 40, isn’t saying who gave him McGregor’s game plan, but it looks like he may have a spy in his camp.

It’s not as if Mayweather really needs the secret info on McGregor’s game plan. Aside from McGregor mugging Mayweather on the inside using an MMA attack plan, there’s not much he’s going to be able to do that he hasn’t seen before.

Mayweather thinks it’s a bad idea if Conor uses the game plan that he’s heard that he intends on using. Mayweather says Conor is going to try and befuddle him by constantly switching from southpaw to orthodox repeatedly during the fight in hopes of confusing him to throw him off. It’s not much of a game plan, because many fighters in boxing use that same approach, and it rarely works against the good fighters.

We just saw Danny Jacobs try switching stances against Gennady Golovkin in their fight last March, and Jacobs ended up getting knocked down while switching stances. For fighters that aren’t confident in their ability to win, they over-think and try gimmicks like switching stances. It generally doesn’t work. McGregor might be better off sticking with what’s gotten him to this stage of his career instead of tinkering with his game.

”I know what he’s going to do,” said Mayweather. “When McGregor comes out, he’s going to keep switching. He’s going to come out southpaw, then he’s going to switch the other way and then he’s going to keep switching. I’m going to give him some knowledge. When you keep switching, all you do is burn energy as you keep switching and switching. You burn too much energy,” said Mayweather.

I wonder who gave away Conor’s game plan to Mayweather. Could I be Paulie Malignaggi? There’s already old video on YouTube showing McGregor sparring with Chris Van Heerden. During the sparring, McGregor is changing stances to try and confuse Van Heerden, and it’s not working too well. Van Heerden doesn’t look at all confused with what McGregor is doing, and he’s jabbing him in the face repeatedly. McGregor is going to need to improve quite a lot from the sparring video for him to have a chance against Mayweather.

If Mayweather got old in his 2 years out of the ring, it might not be useful for him to know what McGregor is going to do inside the ring. A fighter can literally tell his opponent what he’s going to do and still find success. If they’ve got youth and power on their side like McGregor, it might not matter what Mayweather knows. He might not be able to stop McGregor. When a fighter gets old, it happens overnight sometimes.

Mayweather might be making a big mistake in making a comeback against McGregor. Anything is possible when a fighter is 40-years-old, filthy rich, and coming from a 2-year layoff like Mayweather. He’s been spending money like it’s going out of style for the last 2 years, and not dedicating himself to boxing and staying sharp. McGregor has been busy fighting during the years that Mayweather has been taking it easy. That might be all it takes for McGregor to win.

Mayweather Jr. will be a man on a mission on August 26 looking to knockout McGregor to keep him from having something to brag on after their fight. As far as Mayweather is concerned, McGregor, 29, will be happy just to go the full 12 rounds and lose. He’ll have something to talk about with his UFC buddies if he goes the full route and is still on his feet at the end.

Mayweather feels pressure to get the inexperienced McGregor out of there to keep him from reveling in his moral victory at the end of their fight. The problem that could keep Mayweather from stopping McGregor is his lack of punching power. Mayweather hasn’t been a big puncher even at 147, and he’ll be fighting McGregor, who he says is weighing 160 lbs. right now. McGregor is not a small fighter.

For Mayweather o knock him out, he’s going to need to hit him with a lot of fast combinations in a row. Mayweather landing his typical right-hand pot shot and occasional left-right combination is probably not going to be enough to get McGregor out of there.

“It is a victory for him. If it goes the distance, it’s a victory for him – in my eyes also,” said Mayweather. “He believes it’s not going past four and I believe that it’s not going to go the distance at all.”

For Mayweather to get a knockout in this fight, he’s going to need to throw combinations like he did back in the day when he was knocking out guys like Diego Corrales. It’s been a ton of years since Mayweather was a knockout threat to anyone. The only reason he knocked out Victor Ortiz is being he hit him with a cheap shot. Mayweather’s knockout of Ricky Hatton in 2007 came against a weight drained fighter, who had to drop a massive amount of weight in training camp to make weight.

Hatton was undisciplined as well. McGregor isn’t dumb enough to rush Mayweather the way that Hatton kept doing. It was only a matter of time before Mayweather nailed Hatton while he was rushing forward with his wild-eyed attacks. McGregor is arguably a lot smarter than Hatton when it comes to planning his attacks. McGregor isn’t going to low his head and charge Mayweather like Hatton did in 2007.

If Mayweather is going to get a knockout against McGregor, it’s going to come from putting him under pressure and connecting with repeated blasts to the head. Mayweather might also have success landing body shots. Those are punches that Paulie Malignaggi says he had success with in weakening McGregor in his second day of sparring with him. Malignaggi had problems with McGregor’s power during both sparring sessions. He said McGregor was weakening though during their second day of sparring. He felt that he had his number towards the end of the sparring.

There’s still talking about the gloves for the fight even now. They should have settled on the 10oz gloves and left it at that. Mayweather is willing to fight using 8oz gloves, and McGregor likes that idea as well. It’s up to the Nevada State Athletic Commission if they’ll allow the two fighters to use the lighter gloves.

With Mayweather’s history of hand problems, he would be better off using the 10oz gloves. However, he wants to knock McGregor out, so he might not need to worry about his hands for too long in this fight.

“He’s said that he’s used to fighting in 4oz gloves, so like I said in my post, I want to give you (McGregor) any advantage that you think,” said Mayweather. “For years and years it’s just been excuses, just with fighters’ period.”

Gloves aren’t going to change the outcome in this fight unless they were to use 4oz gloves. With gloves that light, McGregor would have a chance of winning if he caught Mayweather with a solid blow early on. Those are gloves that offer very little padding to protect the recipient of the shots from the impact from the shot.