Do you remember how you felt on the night of May 2, 2015?
If you were a boxing fan, or one of the hordes of non-boxing fans, who shelled out cold hard cash for the most hyped fight since Ali-Frasier I (the REAL fight of the century for a lot of reasons) you probably felt cheated. You saw a virtuoso and mostly defensive performance by the most skilled boxer of his generation and the one man who was considered a credible threat to him had no answer for it. Pac-Mayweather had been hyped for more than 6 years and at the end it was a gigantic dud. I remember Pacquiao at the end of that fight: dejected and disappointed.
We all knew how he felt because we felt the same way.
We had actually believed that Pacquiao would either win, or at LEAST be able to draw Floyd into an entertaining fight. We were horribly wrong. Mayweather had not only avoided the firefight we all hoped for, but he didn't even come out of his defensive shell to finish off a fighter that he had hurt more than once. It was a typical Mayweather performance: technically brilliant but viscerally unsatisfying.
We swore we would never fall for it again.
"Never", we cried in unison, "will we allow our money to go to another exhibition by Mayweather!"
We kept our word for a little while.
Mayweather's next fight (his supposed retirement fight) against Andre Berto was almost universally derided. Despite Berto's championship past he was considered unworthy of a mega-fight with Mayweather, having lost 3 of his last 6 fights. Fans stayed away in droves and the fight was reported to sell in 500k range, Floyd's lowest total since his fight with Carlos Baldomir in 2006. Floyd limped into the sunset on the back of another boring decision, this time against an opponent whom not many believed in. We thought that was the end.
Yet here we are.
Floyd is once again in a hyped fight against a ridiculously overmatched opponent. This time, however, the sports world is enthralled.
I haven't gone out of my way to watch any of the pre-fight trash talk but it really hasn't mattered. Everything Conor and Floyd say is regurgitated by every sports outlet imaginable and every vitriolic slur they hurl at one-another ends up in front of me somehow. The reason I don't watch it is because I have learned that it generally has very little impact on the performance of the fighters themselves. Since Ali we have learned to associate verbose confidence with in-ring dominance. In real life that isn't always the case. Joe Louis, due in part to his sensitivities of the racial prejudices of the time, was extremely quite and reserved. Larry Holmes was famously inept at public speaking. Marvin Hagler was known for letting his fists speak for him, as was Julio Cesar Chavez. MMA has been loaded with fighters who were piss-poor at trash talk: Jose Aldo, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture are some notable examples but I could name several dozen more.
The reason we are drawn to trash-talking fighters who can actually perform is because they are exceptionally RARE.
All fighters say publicly that they will win but only half of them are right. As for the talk of fighters "getting inside their opponent's head" and "winning the first round", the real truth is that most fighters at the PPV level are too mentally strong to simply fall apart because of their opponents verbal sparring. Fighters have to get by on their technical and physical merits, no amount of talk will get you victory by itself. The devil is almost always in the details and they are often overlooked by most fans in favor expletive-filled soundbites.
The tactical breakdown of this fight is fairly easy. Most of the conversations I have had with fight fans go something like this:
Fan: "You never know man! McGregor is quick!"
Me: "Quicker than Pacquiao or a young Zab Judah?"
Fan: "He can hit hard too!!"
Me: "Harder than Canelo or Cotto?"
Fan: "But...but he's tall and rangy!"
Me: "Like Diego Corrales whom Floyd knocked down 5 times?"
Fan: "Uh...something about heart..."
Me: "Arturo Gatti"
Usually they give me a blank stare at this point and stop talking about it. The inescapable fact is that there isn't a physical or tactical attribute you can give Conor McGregor that Floyd hasn't already faced in the ring from a much more experienced boxer. The principles of striking change completely when you take away the legs of Conor and put 10-ounce gloves on him. He has also shown issues with his pacing in MMA fights: sprinting at certain points only to need a break later. The 12-round, 3-minute structure of a boxing match against a fighter with impeccable cardio would be a challenge in and of itself for McGregor.
On the tactical side, McGregor generally wins fights by being the faster fighter and controlling range. Controlling range is the hardest thing to do against Floyd Mayweather. Mayweather is a master at keeping the fight where he wants it. He is generally either hitting his opponent, or somewhere where his opponent can't hit him. Conor's "chin-high, arms-out" style of controlling range in MMA would be met by plenty of left hooks in a boxing match with Mayweather. The versatility that keeps MMA opponents guessing about his next move will be seriously curtailed when he only has two weapons at his disposal. I've actually had MMA fans ask me if spinning back-fists are illegal in boxing: yes they are, ANY hitting with the back of the glove is illegal in a boxing match.
As for speed: McGregor will finally find himself being the slower man come August 26.
I have heard the arguments about how Conor might make a fight out of it. They usually give a list of qualities Conor has (his power, his unusual angles etc.) with the assumption that Floyd will unprepared for them.
Let's switch sports for a moment.
Jake Shields is a phenomenal grappler. I've always been a fan of his old-school pressure game and felt it myself when I competed against him at Pan-Americans when we were purple belts. He has a great takedown, an amazing ability to control from dominant positions, and a wicked guillotine. He has won a ton of grappling events against some of the best in the world at his weight class and even took a bronze at ADCC in 2005 at the expense of Leo Santos.
When Jake took on Marcello Garcia at PSL he got smoked. Marcello pulled guard and went for some subs before getting single leg and tapping Jake with a guillotine from top position. It was the first time (to my knowledge) that Jake had ever tapped in a submission competition. There is a video on youtube of Jake and Marcelo rolling gi (where Garcia has an even greater advantage) and it looks like a lion rolling with a house-cat.
None of that makes Jake a less stellar grappler. The paragraph I wrote of his credentials is 100% true. He just isn't as good as a THE BEST POUND FOR POUND GRAPPLER OF HIS GENERATION!! I don't disagree with people who list Conor's abilities as a boxer, I just don't believe he has any boxing abilities that are as good as the GREATEST BOXER OF HIS GENERATION. The distance between Jake Shield's credentials as a grappler and Marcello Garcia's credentials are miles apart, the distance between Conor (never even had a pro boxing match) and Floyd (undefeated since the '96 Olympics and a 15-time world champion) can only be measured in lightyears.
"When will people stop doubting McGregor!?! He's proven the doubters wrong every time!!"
I've read some version of this tweet several thousand times in the past month. People seem to have an idea that McGregor has made a career out of beating opponents no one thought he could overcome and that Floyd is just another fighter in that vein. While it's true that Conor's LIFE has been an incredible underdog story (welfare recipient becomes a world-famous millionaire due to his determination) the numbers don't support that interpretation of his actual fights. McGregor has been the betting favorite in ALL BUT ONE of his UFC fights. The only time he wasn't was against Aldo, where he was a SLIGHT underdog. Against Nate Diaz he was -400 before being upset, the only time his supporters lost money. The truth is that McGregor has almost always come into a fight as the clear favorite and has only underperformed once. The Cinderella Man image his fans seem to have of him has been a solely"outside of the ring" phenomenon.
Make no mistake: Conor McGregor defeating Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring would be the greatest upset in SPORTS history. Not boxing history, not combats sports history, but the entire history of professional athletics. When Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson, his professional record was 30-4-1, not epic, but certainly respectable. The U.S. players who defeated the 1980 Soviet hockey team were college kids, but they had been playing hockey their entire lives and 16 players of the 20 player roster spent time in the NHL (the other 4 played for smaller professional leagues). Before they took on the vaunted Soviet team they had upset the 2nd-seeded Czechoslovakian team 7-3. Villanova made it through the grueling 1985 NCAA tournament and were seeded 8th before upsetting a talent-filled Georgetown team in the finals. Leon Spinks had 7 pro fights and an Olympic medal before he upset a faded Ali.
Pick your favorite upsets of all time and they will all have one thing in common: the other team, or individual, had been competing at the elite level in the sport for years before the upset happened and had a track record of at least some success. In boxing McGregor has neither of these attributes.
The cross-promotional nature of this fight makes it virtually unprecedented in sports history. The first UFC brought fighters together with an attempt at neutral rules that didn't favor a particular style. The whole point was that it was uncharted territory. Floyd Mayweather is the master of his craft and is stepping in against someone making their pro debut. An earlier age would have considered a spectacle of this nature to be unthinkable.
My esteemed colleague Brendan Schlub has offered to bet Max Kellerman $100,000 that Conor wins rounds against Floyd.
Think about that for a moment.
When has it ever been newsworthy that someone claims a Super Bowl team will "score some touchdowns" or that an NBA team in the finals will "shoot some baskets"? When did we as fans not expect a fight that has been hyped to this degree to be at least be marginally competitive? How did "I bet he'll win rounds" become a newsworthy headline from a fight expert?
How did the bar get so low before our very eyes?
I find comfort in reminding myself that no tax money is being spent on this fight. No hospital construction is delayed because the funds are wrapped up in this fight, no highway isn't getting built because of it. The people who have told me they have money on McGregor (2 bartenders and a car salesman this week) aren't betting their mortgage on the fight. They are putting money, that they could just as easily set fire to, on an unprecedented long-shot for fun. If McGregor wins they will have some extra cash and a great "I told you so" story.
I'm not against that at all. Just remember that 12 rounds (if it goes that far) is a long time. If it works out the way it has in the past, you won't be many rounds in before that creeping feeling crawls through your gut. That feeling that you bought into something that flew in the face of all logic. You bought a Mayweather fight expecting a legit competition and you burned your money on little more than an exhibition. The press conferences and shirtless pics are all over and you are watching yet another dud.
You will say to yourself..."never again"
Until next time.
