McGregor: I am superior to Mayweather

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: Conor McGregor is now starting to sound like he believes he’s omnipotent with the way he’s talking about his own talents in comparison to Floyd Mayweather Jr. as D-day quickly approaches for their fight this Saturday night on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

McGregor is starting to sound almost frantic with his self-praise. With very few boxing and MMA fans giving McGregor much love, he’s now patting himself on the back to the point where it’s forlorn. Mayweather spilled the beans today that McGregor might not even make weight. The guy is 164 pounds, and far off from the 154 lb. contract weight, according to Mayweather. It’ll be sad if this UFC champion winds up missing weight badly, and losing a good chunk of his purse for Saturday. McGregor will obviously still make a ton of green stuff for the fight, but it’s never good to throw away millions needlessly by not making weight.

“I am my own man and I feel I am superior to Floyd. When it comes to Saturday night, he will not be prepared for me,” said McGregor at Tuesday’s Grand Arrival at the Toshiba Plaza.

McGregor needs to get his feet back on the ground and start looking at the fight with Mayweather in a more rational way without dreaming too much. The truth of the matter is, McGregor has little more than a puncher’s chance of winning the fight. McGregor doesn’t appear to have any power when it comes to boxing, so I can’t even say that he has a real puncher’s chance. Let me put it like this. McGregor has a chance of winning if Mayweather suffers an injury or he got old from his 2 years out of the ring. Injuries happen, especially to old guys that rarely fight. Look at Bernard Hopkins. He didn’t fight for 2 years and then made the mistake of taking on Joe Smith Jr. Hopkins fell out of the ring and suffered an injury. Was it age or the inactivity that led to Hopkins breaking down like that?

What’s going to happen to McGregor when he finds out that he’s NOT superior to Mayweather? Will McGregor fall apart mentally and fold, as Paulie Malignaggi was saying today. Malignaggi said that McGregor seemed to come unglued during their second sparring session when he began to back him up. Malignaggi said he was starting to give McGregor grief, and he could see that he losing it mentally. If Malignaggi could see this weakness in McGregor, then just wait until Mayweather gets in the ring with him.

“If you look at the way I fight, I am a fast starter. I come out and bang people right away. With eight ounce gloves, I don’t see him lasting more than one or two rounds,”said McGregor.

Being a fast starter isn’t going to help McGregor beat a fighter in the class of Mayweather. It just means that McGregor is going to try and rush Mayweather like Manny Pacquiao did in 2015 and it was a failure. You can’t beat Mayweather by trying to jump on him like he’s an amateur fighter just starting out. McGregor has got to have better ideas than that. McGregor needs to realize that he’s not fighting one of his limited UFC fighters with no skills. He’s fighting the best boxer on earth. Mayweather is going to be well prepared for McGregor coming out of the starting blocks quickly on Saturday night, and he’ll make sure he neutralizes his attack right away.

McGregor is getting a lot of mileage out of his constantly talking about the gloves for the fight. He needs to let go of that already and stop harping on it. We get it. He thinks he’s going to win because 8oz gloves will be used for the fight. I don’t know why McGregor won’t comment on the fact that Mayweather has worn 8oz gloves in almost every fight during his long 21-year pro career. Out of 49 fights as a pro, Mayweather has worn 8oz gloves in 46 of those fights. So, there is no advantage for McGregor in wearing 8oz gloves. He seems like he’s really reaching for any lifeline to help him boost his shaky self-confidence for this fight. Instead of talking about the gloves as the reason why he’s going to win, McGregor should be talking about these areas:

– Ring rust: Mayweather hasn’t fought in 2 years. That’s a long, long time for anyone to be inactive, especially someone rich and 40-years-old.

– Hand problems: Mayweather has had hand problems throughout his career that has limited his punching power. I suspect that his hand problems will still be there on Saturday night. That at least gives McGregor a chance

– Fighting aggressively: Mayweather said he’ll fight aggressively for this fight. If he does that, then it gives McGregor a chance to win, because he’ll be coming straight at him instead of fighting off his back foot.

“If people are overlooking my size, power and youth, they shouldn’t be,” said McGregor. ”I’m very confident in those attributes. I believe I’ll knock him out early.”

What good is size when you don’t have the power to go along with it? I could understand why McGregor would be talking about his size advantage in this fight I he could actually punch, but he can’t. All that size that McGregor has going for him is just going to make for a bigger target for Mayweather to riddle him to pieces. McGregor might not even have the energy on Saturday night to carry all that size around the ring. If McGregor is weight drained from having taken off 10 lbs. of water weight in the last 2 days of the fight, how in the world does he hope to win?

McGregor is going to be fighting on fumes after 3 rounds in my view. That’s my prediction. He’s going to be gassed out, slapping at Mayweather, and holding like crazy. If McGregor chooses to start fouling Mayweather on the inside by hitting him with punches to the back of his head, then this could be an early night. The referee Robert Byrd won’t put up with McGregor fouling Mayweather. He’ll pull the plug on the fight if he can’t get McGregor to follow his instructions and keep it clean. Naturally, if McGregor’s goal is to be given the boot out of the fight by the referee, then he’ll be overjoyed at being disqualified, because it will save him from taking a bad thrashing from Mayweather.

“I cannot wait to get in the on Saturday night and perform in front of my fans and take my place at the top of this sport,” said McGregor.

I have no idea what McGregor is talking about. If he beat Mayweather, he still wouldn’t be at the top of boxing. I hate to break this to McGregor, but Mayweather is 40-years-old, rich beyond belief, and he hasn’t fought in 2 years. We don’t know how much he’s got left at his age and with his inactivity.

Mayweather might be over-the-hill for all we know. The reason I say this is because if McGregor wins, it’s only because of Mayweather’s inactivity and his advanced age. There can’t be any other reasons for Mayweather to lose. A debilitating injury for Mayweather would likely be caused by his old age. Younger fighters hold together a lot better than older ones.