Floyd Jr. says “vintage Mayweather” will be back for McGregor

By Boxing News - 07/20/2017 - Comments

Image: Floyd Jr. says “vintage Mayweather” will be back for McGregor

By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he’ll be unveiling the “vintage Mayweather” for his fight against UFC star attraction Conor McGregor on August 26 in their fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s unclear why Mayweather feels the “vintage” Floyd Jr. needs to be fighting a novice guy like McGregor.

You would think that the 40-year-old version of Mayweather would do just fine against a fighter like McGregor, who will be competing for the first time inside of a boxing ring. It’s very rare that a world level fighter takes on a novice with a 0-0 record in boxing. That kind of thing is frowned upon, because it tends to end badly for the inexperienced fighter. It also doesn’t make for good television to have some poor sap beaten up by an experienced boxer.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission isn’t blocking the Mayweather-McGregor fight, so it’s going to be one of those fights that will likely end badly for McGregor. If Mayweather decides to take it easy on McGregor, then the boxing fans might get a decent fight. However, Mayweather clearly took it easy on his last opponent Andre Berto in his last fight in 2015, and it was a horrible fight to watch.

Mayweather toyed with Berto for 12 rounds, hitting him whenever he wanted to, and fighting like he was coasting for 12 rounds. Berto is an experienced fighter with some talent. If Berto couldn’t do anything against Mayweather, then it doesn’t bode well for McGregor to do anything either.

“We’ve got great feedback,” said Mayweather to Fighthype about his fight with the 29-year-old McGregor. “Conor McGregor is in his 20s. He has the longer reach, and he’s stronger. Also, he’s been active and I’ve been inactive. It’s going to be exciting. Vintage, they’ve brought back the vintage Floyd Mayweather.”

Mayweather seems to be trying to build up his opponent McGregor to the boxing media. Mayweather wouldn’t have to do this if McGregor had fought at least one tune-up fight in boxing so that he could show the fans that he’s got the talent to compete against a guy like Mayweather. The two highly popular fighters were in too much of a hurry to face each other, and they didn’t do it right in a strategic manner. In the olden days, the promoters would have taken their time to build up a fight between Mayweather Jr. and McGregor by having both guys fighting and showing off their talent on the same card in fighting other opponents. Mayweather hasn’t fought in 2 years, and he’s 40-years-old. He was in a hurry to fight again and he didn’t want to take on someone in a tune-up fight that is customary for inactive fighters to take. The whole promotion has been rushed. Neither guy took a tune-up fight, and they had an abbreviated press tour of just 4 cities rather than visiting 10 or more.

“If I was 20 and McGregor was 20, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Mayweather. “Once I became my own boss, I was able to roll the dice freestyle and become ‘Money’ Mayweather,” said Floyd.

Mayweather is probably right about him not getting a fight against someone like McGegor if he was in his early 20s and with his original promoter. Mayweather used to be promoted by Top Rank earlier in his career. I’m not sure if Top Rank boss Bob Arum would have been interested in matching Mayweather against McGregor.

If Arum decided to put Mayweather in with guys from his own Top Rank stable, then we might not have ever seen the Mayweather-McGregor fight take place. It’s good that Mayweather is making decisions for himself in who he faces, but it might wind up bad for boxing now that he’s fighting a UFC guy in McGregor instead of a boxer that would have a better chance of beating him like Keith Thurman, Gennady Golovkin or Errol Spence Jr.

One thing that bothers some boxing fans is the Mayweather-McGregor fight will be undercutting the September 16 fight between middleweights Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and Saul Canelo Alvarez. With the two PPV fights taking place within 3 weeks of each other, the boxing fans are going to be asked to either pay for both, which would drive their cable bill through the roof, or purchase only one of the fight.

Mayweather’s fight with McGregor comes first, so that’s the one that the boxing fans will likely purchase. The casualties will the Canelo-Golokvkin fight. That’s bad news for that fight, as it will end up with fewer PPV buys that what it would have received had the Mayweather-McGregor fight not been staged right in front of it on August 26.

Golden Boy Promotions executive Bernard Hopkins isn’t too happy about having the Mayweather vs. McGrego fight taking place so close to the promotional companies Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. Like Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya, Hopkins is not pleased with the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight taking place so close to the Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez match.

“It’s a show, it’s entertainment,” said Golden Boy Promotions executive Bernard Hopkins to Exposed Interviews about the Mayweather-McGregor fight. “It hurts boxing. It’s a circus. We got a major fight coming up,” said Hopkins about the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight on September 16. “He wants that [attention] to swing his way. McGregor can’t fight, man. He can’t box. But who can fight is Canelo. Who can fight is Triple G,” said a visibly upset Hopkins.

There’s nothing that can be done about the Mayweather—McGregor fight sucking the air out of the Canelo-GGG fight on September 16. It might be in Canelo and Golovkin’s best interest to setup more media events and interviews so that they can compete with the Mayweather vs. McGegor fight in terms of the hype. We’re not hearing a lot about the Golovkin vs. Canelo fight in the last two weeks. Those guys should be working doubly hard to bring as much attention on their fight to the boxing world as possible Canelo and GGG are not going to be able to get the boxing public interested in their fight by rarely giving interviews.

YouTube video