Mayweather wasn’t wowed by McGregor’s power

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (50-0, 26 KOs) was able to walk the supposedly big punching Conor McGregor (0-1) down and stop him in the 10th round last Saturday night. UFC star McGregor, 29, came into the fight with Mayweather having a reputation as a knockout artist in the UFC, where he holds 2 titles.

Against Mayweather, the southpaw McGregor didn’t look powerful at all. He was mostly hitting Mayweather with arm punches for 10 rounds. Mayweather said after the fight that if McGregor was a big puncher, he wouldn’t have walked him down the way he did in their mega-fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“As far as his punching power – he’s solid,” Mayweather said after the fight. “I’ve felt it before, so that’s why I kept coming straight ahead. Obviously, it wasn’t the type of power to say, ‘I can’t come forward.’ Because if it were that type of power, I wouldn’t have come forward.”

What power McGregor had, he failed to use it with the way he was throwing arm punches instead of loading up. McGregor hit Mayweather with a minimum of 3 solid punches in the entire fight. The rest of the shots McGregor landed were jabs and arm punches. It’s no wonder that Mayweather was able to walk McGregor down with the way he was throwing such weak shots.

McGregor’s corner should have made some adjustments when Mayweather started to walk forward. That’s McGregor’s fault for failing to get a boxing trainer to help him prepare for Mayweather. McGregor stuck with his MMA coach, which was not wise. A good trainer would have known right away how to stop Mayweather from walking forward the way he was. Mayweather didn’t fight like that in his matches against Marcos Maidana and Saul Canelo Alvarez. Those guys would have lit Mayweather up if he fought like that against them. Mayweather was leaning backwards all the time against those guys.

McGregor, 29, came into the Mayweather fight with little more than a puncher’s chance of winning. The odds were heavily stacked against the UFC fighter and rightly so. He was making his debut in boxing without any experience whatsoever in that sport. You cannot count UFC competition as experience in boxing. That’s a completely different animal. It’s like saying NFL player has the experience to compete against Mayweather because it’s a contact sport. We’re talking different sports, and it’s confusing why the Nevada State Athletic Commission ever sanctioned the Mayweather-McGregor face.

Golden Boy promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya said the fight was a “fraud.” The boxing and MMA fans asked for the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight, and they got what they asked for. Let’s just hope that the fans don’t start asking for Mayweather to fight additional MMA fighters. Nate Diaz is an even better stand up fighter than McGregor. I hope the fans don’t ask for Mayweather to return to the ring for him to fight Diaz in a boxing match. Mayweather could justify the fight to the media by saying, ‘The fans asked for it. I’m just giving them what they want.’

“Give the fans what they want to see,” Mayweather said. “I pushed him and taunted him. ‘You still ain’t knocked me out, yet. I thought you said it wasn’t going past the fourth. Show me your real power.’”

Mayweather did indeed push McGregor at the end of round 5, but that made the fight look more like WWE than a real fight. It just made the fight look more like a joke than it already was. The fans asked for the circus fight, and that’s what the fight turned out to be. It’s too bad McGregor didn’t have any punching power or stamina to fight a full 12 round fight.

McGregor had the youth and the size on his side, but his stamina was so awful. McGregor was done for the night after the 4th round. From that point on, McGregor was fighting on fumes, taking head shots and being backed up by the light punching Mayweather, who was throwing single scoring shots to the head.

McGregor was throwing a lot of rabbit punches in the fight, and the referee Robert Byrd showed surprising patience in not stopping the action to take points off from him. Byrd would have been perfectly justified to take points off and even disqualify McGregor for the high number of rabbit shots he was landing to the back of the 40-year-old Mayweather’s head in each round. Of course, if Byrd had disqualified McGregor, the crowd would have been hopping mad.

The fans had paid so much money to see the fight live at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Mayweather-McGregor undercard was just plane awful. There nothing interesting to see in terms of well-known big name fighters or exciting fights. The only compelling fight on the entire card was the main event between Mayweather and McGregor, and that was like watching a boxer against an amateur.

The referee Byrd continually spoke to McGregor after he would land rabbit punches and hit on the break. Byrd came across like he was teaching McGregor about the sport. I’ve seen a referee teaching a fighter about the rules of boxing during a big PPV match before. That made the fight seem more an exhibition to me. When you have a referee teaching a fighter during a big contest, it makes it look like amateur hour.

“I let the referee do his job,” Mayweather said. “I’m not here to bash the referee. But you guys knew what was going on – a lot of rabbit punching. A lot. Things happen, but you live and you learn. The referee is a hell of a referee. Conor McGregor is a hell of a fighter. I’m not here to bash anyone. I just went out there to do my job tonight.”

Why is Mayweather complaining about rabbit punches from McGregor? Mayweather should have known what he was getting when he signed on for this fight with the UFC fighter. When you hand-pick a fighter from MMA, you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re getting nailed in the back of the head with a hammer fist from them. McGregor only had one training camp to learn the sport of boxing. It was an impossible task for McGregor to unlearn all of his MMA skills for this fight, and adopt a pure boxing style. It was impossible for McGregor. What was surprising though was how quick McGregor’s feet were. He was a lot faster than Mayweather was on his feet. The way that McGregor was able to continually work his way to get behind Mayweather, it was impressive. When McGregor was able to get to Mayweather’s back, he made him look old.

After seeing this fight, I would give Mayweather zero chance of beating McGregor in the octagon. Mayweather would last all 20 seconds against McGregor if he fought him in the UFC. McGregor is too fast for Mayweather in terms of his footwork. It would take McGregor seconds to get to Mayweather’s back and take him to the matt for ground and pound. It’s a good thing Mayweather didn’t bring up a rematch with McGregor in the UFC after their fight last Saturday night, because I think it would be bad for the UFC for them to let amateurs with no experience like Mayweather compete in their sport.