By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he’s not the same guy he once was now that he’s 40-year-old, and he feels that the 29-year-old Conor McGregor is the one that has the advantages on his side going into their August 26 fight.
As far as Mayweather is concerned, McGregor should be the one that is the favorite in the fight, not him. Unfortunately, that’s not how the boxing public views the fight. They see it as a cut and dried mismatch that favors Mayweather all the way. Indeed, a lot of fans, both MMA and boxing, aren’t interest in purchasing the fight on Showtime pay-per-view due to it being seen as a mismatch and not a true fight.
Mayweather telling the fans that he’s and old and not the same guy he used to be likely won’t cause them to rush to order it on PPV. The fight isn’t even a sellout yet for the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. That is definitely a harbinger of doom for this highly hyped mismatch.
”It’s obvious I slipped somewhere. Something has taken a toll on my career,” said Mayweather to ESPN in talking about his fight against McGregor. “I’m not the same fighter I was two years ago.”
I hope guys know that if Mayweather loses this fight to McGregor, more than a few boxing fans are going to say it was a fix. They’re not going to believe that Mayweather got old enough for a novice fighter like McGregor to beat him. That’s the entire problem with the Mayweather-McGregor event, they just see it as a fight where the outcome is predetermined. It’s like watching one of the fake professional wrestling matches where you know which is going to win based on his popularity. Even in professional wrestling, you get upsets every now and then. But with the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight, it’s too much of a mismatch as far as boxing skills and experience goes for Mayweather to lose.
McGregor, 5’9”, is taller and has the longer reach than the 5’8” Mayweather. McGregor is also the heavier guy. That could turn around and hurt him when he has to lose weight to get down to the 154 lb. limit for the fight. There’s a possibility that McGregor could be weight drained. But I think he’s got more problems than just weight.
It’s starting to sound like Mayweather is trying to pump up interest in his fight with McGregor, but he’s doing it in the wrong way. Mayweather is never going to convince the boxing fans that McGregor should be the favorite in the fight, because no one is going to buy that. It would be the same thing if Mayweather fought McGregor in the UFC, but it would be the fans seeing Mayweather as having no chance. To be honest, Mayweather has a much better chance beating McGregor in the UFC than he does in beating him inside the boxing ring on August 26.
Clearly, Mayweather isn’t going to be the same fighter he was 2 years ago when he dominated Andre Berto in a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. But that wasn’t the same Mayweather that beat Ricky Hatton in 2007. Like all aging fighters, Mayweather has lost some of his talent over time. Just how much his boxing skills has eroded since the Berto fight is the big question.
Of course, even if Mayweather has lost 40 percent of his physical skills since 2015, he’s still far ahead of novice McGregor, who has never fought before in a boxing ring. This will be McGregor’s first professional fight when he gets inside the ring with Mayweather. That’s like you and me going into the ring with Mayweather after one training camp. I don’t care how much Mayweather has lost from his game, he’s going to have an easy time against an inexperienced fighter like McGregor.
Paulie Malignaggi, who recently quit McGregor’s training camp after sparing with him twice, says he was hurting him with body shots in their second spar and had him gassed out after 6 rounds. Malignaggi says he was hitting McGregor at will with punches after he got tired. You must think that if Malignaggi was doing that to McGregor, then wait and see what Mayweather does to hit. It’s not even going to be air. It wasn’t fair fight to begin with, but if McGregor can’t even handle getting hit to the body by Malignaggi, then this is going to be an easy fight.
“He’s a lot younger, so youth is on his side,” said Mayweather about McGregor. “And I’ve been off a couple of years. And I’m in my 40’s. So, if you look at everything on paper, it leans toward Conor McGregor.”
Mayweather has been taking it easy for the last 2 years spending the millions that he’s made from his fights against Manny Pacquiao, Andre Berto, Marcos Maidana, Robert Guerrero and Saul Canelo Alvarez. Mayweather made a massive amount of money in his 6-fight contract with Showtime Boxing that led to him finally retiring after his win over Andre Berto in September 2015. Being inactive for the last 2 years definitely hasn’t helped Mayweather’s skills any, but at least he had skills.
McGregor has rudimentary skills. In the last boxing fans that I saw of him, McGregor was turning completely around after throwing a punch. It was painful to watch how amateurish McGregor looked. I was trying to imagine what would happen to McGregor if he tried to spin completely around after missing a punch against Mayweather on August 26. Does Mayweather hit McGregor on the back of his head when he turns his back or does he give him a break and not take advantage of his horrible flaws? I guess it’ll depend on how badly Mayweather wants to take him out. If he plans on knocking him out, then Mayweather might need to go after each and every mistake he makes inside the ring.
Mayweather being a former 5-division world champion means he’d got loads of talent, experience and know how to get the job done against McGregor. It’s too bad there isn’t a handicap for McGregor that would give him more of a chance of winning. If they had written a rule in for the fight where Mayweather wouldn’t throw any punches for a certain amount of rounds, it would be a fairer fight. That would turn the fight into a total joke though, and I don’t think anyone in the boxing world would buy it. You can imagine that Mayweather and McGregor kicked around the idea of having a big handicap of some type written into the contract for the fight. But if they had done that, then few boxing fans would take the fight seriously enough for them to want to purchase it.
“I’m not the same fighter I was five years ago. I lost a step. A fighter like Andre Berto isn’t even supposed to go the distance with Floyd Mayweather, but remember, I was 38,” said Mayweather. “It’s obvious I’m slipping a little bit to even let a fighter like Andre Berto go the distance with me. I’m not what I used to be. I used to have a 90 per cent knockout ratio. It’s obvious I slipped somewhere. Something has taken a toll on my career.”
Mayweather stopped knocking guys out at a high percentage 15 years ago after he left the super featherweight division and moved up to the lightweight division. The knockouts dried up after Mayweather moved up to the 135-lb. division. It wasn’t age that caused Mayweather to stop knocking guys out. It was more of a case of him fighting in a division that didn’t suit him in terms of power. It’s like with Mikey Garcia. He was knocking everyone out at 126, 130 and 135, but when he moved up to light welterweight for his fight against Adrien Broner, his power shots didn’t looked nearly as impressive. Mikey was never able to hurt Broner in the entire fight.
Mayweather says he “owes the public” following his disappointing performance against Manny Pacquiao in May 2015 in their “fight of the century.’ Mayweather said he was going to give the boxing public the fight they wanted to see when he fought Andre Berto after the Pacquiao fight. That was supposed to be the fight where Mayweather would make it exciting for the boxing fans. There was even talk about the fight being on regular Showtime instead of PPV, because there was little interest in this Mayweather-Berto mismatch. The fans ended up having to pay to see the fight on Showtime PPV, and it was just as boring as the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. You can argue that it was more boring than the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight, because at least Pacquiao was making it interesting at times. Berto was too slow and over-matched to do anything inside the ring with Mayweather. It was a terrible fight for the boxing fans to watch. If Mayweather is going to pay the public back for his last 2 dull fights on PPV, then this is the one for him to do it. McGregor has no experience in the sport, so Mayweather should be able to destroy him quickly for the fans on August 26.
