By Eric Baldwin: UFC fighter Conor McGregor just won’t shut-up about his interest in fighting 39-year-old retired former world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. for some reason. Leonard Ellerbe of Mayweather Promotions made it perfectly clear last week that there’s not going to be a fight between Mayweather and McGregor, because Mayweather is happy and retired.
That doesn’t seem to be sinking in with the 28-year-old McGregor, who continues to talk about wanting to fight Mayweather. McGregor picked up a boxing license in California last week. McGregor says that if he fought Mayweather that he’d be looking to knock him out. What McGregor doesn’t say is that he would likely need to have permission from the UFC before he could fight Mayweather.
McGregor would also need to negotiate the fight with Mayweather, which at this point would seem to be an insurmountable hurdle given that McGregor wants a 50-50 split of the money. The final obstacle to a Mayweather-McGregor fight would be finding a state in the U.S that would sanction a mismatch like that. It would be under boxing rules, of course, which would put McGregor under a tremendous disadvantage. McGregor would be a novice with a 0-0 record going into a fight against a former world champion with a record of 49-0.
McGregor and Mayweather would have to search for a state that would be fine with a mismatch of that kind, and I don’t know if there’s any inside the U.S that would allow that kind of a fight to take place. Anytime you have someone with a 0-0 record going against a superstar, it’s going to be problematic to get the fight sanctioned.
McGregor said this to Yahoo Sports News about him fighting Mayweather:
“If I focus with the work ethic I have solely on the sport of boxing, there’s no telling what I could do,” said McGregor. “I’d go in there to knock him out. That’s it. He can be hit, he’s been hit before. Age waits for no man. I know the size is on my side, I know the reach is on my side, I know the youth is on my side.”
McGregor doesn’t look that good when he’s standing and throwing punches in his MMA fights. He looks like a guy that just recently learned to throw punches. You can argue that the main reason why McGregor is able to get the better of his opponents in the UFC in the standup fighting is that he’s facing guys that are former wrestlers, and those type of fighters just don’t seem to do well when it comes to fighting. It’s like asking one of them to get on the track and run a 100-yard dash. The wrestler types just don’t seem to be built for throwing punches. They’re good at wrestling, but they’re not designed for boxing.
All we have to go on with McGregor to know how he’d do in a boxing ring is his sparring video of him with former Errol Spence Jr. knockout victim Chris Van Heerden. McGregor appeared to have a very hard time with Van Heerden in the sparring video. It looked one-sided with Van Heerden doing whatever he wanted. That obviously wasn’t good news for McGregor that he couldn’t handle Van Heerden.
The weight would also be a problem. McGregor would need to weigh-in at 147 at least for a fight against Mayweather.
If McGregor and Mayweather ultimately fight each other in a boxing ring on pay-per-view, I think it will hurt the sport and ruin for other MMA fighters that choose call out a top boxer in order to get a pay-day. The fans that purchase the Mayweather-McGregor fight are going to likely be furious if the fight turns out to be a mismatch, because many of them will be expecting a competitive fight. It won’t be competitive though unless Mayweather carries McGregor by taking it easy on him for the duration or a portion of the fight.
You would have to argue that the only way McGregor lasts against Mayweather is if he fights at one-quarter speed and doesn’t throw anything but jabs. McGregor looks like a wrestler when he’s fighting. He’s not built the right way to be a boxer. McGregor lacks the coordination to fight in a ring other than against poor 3rd tier fighters that have no boxing skills.
In other words, McGregor would need an opponent much like himself for him to have a chance of winning. If they found a guy that just picked up boxing or someone that is badly out of shape, I think McGregor could maybe beat a fighter like that if they didn’t have training in the sport. Even an old and out of shape former contender would likely destroy McGregor in my opinion. McGregor doesn’t have the training for him beat someone that has had years of training in the sport. You can’t just pick up boxing and think you’re going to beat anyone with a background in the sport. It’s just not going to happen.
“Since I’ve got that boxing license, Floyd’s fat manager came out and was like ‘Oh Floyd’s in the Bahamas, he doesn’t care about Conor,'” McGregor said. “Well I don’t give a f— about Floyd either. If you don’t want this fight, that’s no problem.”