By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. could be in for a surprise when he gets inside the ring with the supposedly unskilled UFC star Conor McGregor on August 26 in their boxing match in Las Vegas, Nevada. McGregor’s trainer John Kavanagh says his fighter’s skills from the MMA has transcended over well to boxing.
It’s not that much different, he says. It’s not like what many people think in terms of McGregor not having the ability to adjust to fighting inside a boxing ring instead of the octagon. McGregor has sparring partners from boxing that he’s been working out with, and he’s doing well with them.
McGregor, 28, is seen by a lot of boxers and sports writers as having no chance against Mayweather. McGregor could surprise them by going out and pulling off a huge upset. There are already a lot of boxing and MMA fans that believe McGregor as having the talent to beat Mayweather, who at 40 has seen better days. Mayweather hasn’t fought in 2 years, and it’s been lot longer than that since he fought a healthy in their prime fighter that was capable of giving him a tough fight.
“He will be very well prepared. We have gone through one training cycle and we had in some good sparring partners, and, as we expected, his skills transcended over,” Kavanagh said to skysports.com. “He is not trying to win Wimbledon. It’s not that different. His understanding of range, his understanding of how to move around is excellent. It’s not completely different.”
What a lot of people don’t understand is the things that McGregor has learned in the UFC makes him capable of competing right off the bat in the boxing world. UFC athletes are just as talented as the top boxers. UFC has changed a lot from the days where most of the action was done on the canvas, with the fighters spending most of the time grappling. Nowadays, most of the action in UFC fights is done with both fighters on their feet, looking to punch.
That’s what the MMA fans want to see. They like when the fighters stay on their feet like boxers and look score knockouts with the lightly padded gloves. McGregor is considered to be the best fighter in the UFC in terms of his boxing skills. He’s got the best punching power, and his southpaw stance makes him very hard to beat. Mayweather could catch one of McGregor’s big shots and wind up getting knocked out on August 26. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what happens,
Mayweather has these things going against him in the McGregor fight:
– Age: Mayweather is an aging 40-year-old fighter facing a much younger in his prime 28-year-old McGregor. This is a key factor for the fight. McGregor is the young lion taking on an aging lion, which has lost some of his boxing skills due to age. When you get an old lion and a young lion mixing it up, the younger lion generally is the one that prevails.
– Inactivity: Mayweather has been inactive for 2 years. He’s been living high on the hog with the riches he made from his big fight against the injured Manny Pacquiao in 2015. Try to picture what kind of lifestyle Mayweather has been living for the last 2 years with all that green stuff. Now he’s about to try and come back against a young and in his prime McGregor. This is the best fighter in the UFC, period. This is going to be bad news for Mayweather when he gets inside the ring with McGregor and expects him to be unskilled. When a fighter gets old and stops competing, they lose edge that made them better than their opponents. When you add age to the equation for them, it’s much worse. It’s like this with any sport. If this was golf or tennis, you couldn’t expect the person to come back from 2 years of inactivity and pick up right where they left off.
– Size: McGregor looks to be a middleweight in size. He’s just as big as Gennady Golovkin and Saul Canelo Alvarez. His power is probably along the same lines as those two fighters. Mayweather has the power of a super featherweight. His power didn’t travel up with him when he moved to the welterweight division a little over a decade ago. McGregor is going to have a big advantage in the power department when he gets Mayweather inside the ring.
– Stance: Not much has been said about this, but McGregor’s southpaw stance will give him a huge plus in the fight. Mayweather hasn’t competed with a southpaw since his match with the injured Manny Pacquiao. You can’t count that fight due to Pacquiao’s injured right shoulder, and his small 5’6” frame. Pacquiao was also old. Mayweather waited 6 years before finally agreeing to fight Manny. If the two of them had fought each other in 2009 or earlier, it would have been very tough on Mayweather.
– Crowd: The crowd will be on McGregor’s side. Mayweather has a lot of detractors. McGregor has a massive fan base due to him being an active fighter with personally. McGregor is an entertaining fighter, and those types of guys have lots of fans. With Mayweather, many boxing fans pay to see him fight just to see if he’ll lose. As such, the crowd will almost surely be backing McGregor on August 26. McGregor fights well when he’s being cheered by the fans.
– Unfamiliarity with McGregor’s unorthodox fighting style: Mayweather is not accustomed to fighting someone like McGregor. This is going to be a new experience for Mayweather. He’s not facing a guy with years of boxing experience. He’s fighting a guy with an MMA stance, who does everything backwards. Those are the most difficult type of guys that an experienced fighter like Mayweather could be fighting.
Mayweather said recently that he could beat McGregor in the octagon as well as a boxing ring. Kavanagh disagrees. He thinks Mayweather is lying about that.
“Stop lying,” Kavanagh said. “We all know what would happen if it went into the octagon.”