By Jim Dower: Former 5 division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (50-0, 27 KOs) used a straight-ahead pressure style of fighting to walk down and stop UFC fighter Conor McGregor (0-1) in the 10th round on Saturday night on Showtime pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Referee Robert Byrd stopped the fight after Mayweather hurt McGregor in the 10th and was hitting him at will with shots.
The official time of the stoppage was at 1:05 of the 10th.
The win for Mayweather puts him past Rocky Marciano with win No.50. Unfortunately, the fight looked like a sparring match rather than a real fight. You hate to say that Mayweather purposely took it easy on Conor, but that’s what it looked like.
The referee Robert Byrd let McGregor get away with a lot of fouls. He hit Mayweather with a high number of rabbit punches and low blows without being penalized.
”He was composed. He was making me through when he was patient with his shots,” said McGregor. ”I thought it was close. I thought it was a little early in the stoppage. They should have let me keep going. I was a little fatigued. He was a little more composed with the shots, especially in the later rounds.”
The referee did what he had to do in stopping the fight due to McGregor being exhausted, hurt and just taking needless punches to the head.
”This is my last fight,” said Mayweather after the fight.
If Mayweather didn’t look like he was so obvious about taking it easy on McGregor, you could say the UFC fighter did a great job for a guy making his pro debut in boxing. Unfortunately, it looked like a staged fight with Mayweather purposefully taking it easy on McGregor until the 10th. Many members of the media said all along this wasn’t a real fight, and it looked like that was the case until the 10th.
“He’s composed, he’s not that fast, he’s not that powerful, but boy is he composed in there,” said McGregor. “I thought it was close though and I thought it was a bit of an early stoppage. I was just a little fatigued. He was just a lot more composed with his shots. I have to give it to him, that’s what 50 pro fights will do for you. I’ve been strangled on live TV and came back. When you’re in here in the squared circle, everything is different. Let the man put me down, that’s fatigue, that’s not damage. Where was the final two rounds? Let me walk back to my corner and compose myself.”
