Mayweather says his legacy is on the line against McGregor

By Boxing News - 08/18/2017 - Comments

Image: Mayweather says his legacy is on the line against McGregor

By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants the boxing public to know that he’s risking his legacy in the sport by facing UFC star Conor McGregor on August 26. As the fans already know, McGregor (0-0) is a novice in the sport of boxing, as he’s never fought inside of a ring before. His experience is limited to MMA, which is entirely different from boxing.

McGregor is a good fighter in that realm of combat, but he’s still going to be over his head inside of a boxing ring against a fighter like Floyd in their high priced fight on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“When a fighter has been dominating for 20-some years and never lost, everything is on the line,” said Mayweather to skysports.com. “My legacy. My boxing record. Everything is on the line.”

Mayweather’s legacy is always been on the line. It’s not just for his fight against the novice McGregor. It’s been on the line for years now. It obviously helps Mayweather ensure that his legacy isn’t tarnished by him fighting a guy with no experience in the sport. When you handpick someone that has never boxed in their life, I think you can feel pretty safe that you’re not going to have your precious legacy tarnished. Mayweather’s legacy would be at a much higher risk if he fought someone in his own sport like Gennady Golovkin, who has volunteered to drop down to 154 to fight him. Mayweather fought Saul Canelo Alvarez at a 152 lb. catch-weight in 2013. Golovkin is willing to drop down to 154 to fight Mayweather. If Mayweather wants to brag about how he’s taking such a great risk by fighting McGregor, he should take an even greater risk by fighting Golovkin, Keith Thurman or Errol Spence Jr. If you’re a great tennis player, would you be worried about your legacy if someone from basketball was put on the tennis court to play you? I think it’s a joke the way that Mayweather is complaining about his legacy being at risk against McGregor.

“It’s all about taking risk,” said Mayweather in calling his fight against McGregor a risk. “I wouldn’t be where I’m at if I didn’t take risks so I don’t mind putting a 49-0 record on the line, putting everything on the line for this fight.”

There are a lot of risks Mayweather didn’t take in his career. He never fought Antonio Margarito when he was knocking everyone out. He never fought Kostya Tszyu, Keith Thurman, Spence Jr., Shawn Porter or Paul Williams. For the fans that don’t remember how dominant Paul Williams was at welterweight. He couldn’t get a fight against Mayweather. Yes, Mayweather fought Canelo, but the Mexican fighter was only 22 at the time, and he had to boil down to 152 to fight at a catch-weight to give Mayweather a handicap. Mayweather didn’t fight Manny Pacquiao until he was 36-years-old and clearly past his prime years. Why didn’t Mayweather take the risk of fighting Manny when he was at his best in 2009? When you make careful decisions to fight guys that you know you can beat, you can’t say that your legacy is truly on the line. Mayweather never took the real risks with his career that you see other fighters make on a routine basis.

I think Mayweather’s career is more about careful match-making than about the risks he took. He was very careful in picking the right guy at the right time in his career. If Mayweather fought Canelo right now, I think it’s pretty clear that he would be knocked out. Canelo would get to Mayweather eventually and knock him out like he did Amir Khan. Golovkin would be the same result for Mayweather. Why isn’t he taking risks against him? Mayweather is fighting McGregor at 154. Golovkin has volunteered to fight Mayweather at 154. There’s no excuse for why Mayweather doesn’t take that risk, is there?
“Experience wise, it leans towards me, period, because I have been in the ring at such a high level for so long,” said Mayweather.

It goes without saying that Mayweather has more experience than McGregor in boxing. An amateur can say they have more experience than McGregor in boxing. I’m not sure why Mayweather is even bothering to mention his advantage in experience. He’s been boxing since he was 5-years-old. He fought in the Olympics for the U.S, and he captured 5 division world titles as a pro. Why would Mayweather even need to talk about his advantage in experience of McGregor? Even the casual boxing fans that have scant knowledge about the sport recognize that Mayweather is the one with the experience on his side and McGregor just the victim that is being pulled in from the UFC for Mayweather to look good against. This is not a fair fight without a handicap for McGregor. Unless Mayweather purposefully stays in 1st gear the entire fight, he’s going to clown McGregor and beat him badly. That’s the only logical conclusion for this fight.

Hopefully, the sport of boxing isn’t going to degrade into back and forth mismatches between MMA fighters and boxers in the future. I don’t think it’s fair to the fans of either sport to have these events setup. I guess it’s new for the casual fans that don’t remember what has happened in the past when fighters move from their sport into MMA and vice versa. The fans will find out through repetition that these fights will always end in mismatches. Mayweather is lucky that the boxing and MMA fans don’t realize how bad this fight will be. I think they’ll be kicking themselves afterwards for having paid $99 to order the Mayweather-McGregor fight on PPV. Unfortunately the Mayweather-McGregor undercard is not good enough to justify paying huge money for the mismatch in the main event. For the undercard, you’ve got Badou Jack fighting WBA light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly, who is the secondary WBA champion. The main champion is Andre Ward. The World Boxing Association has 2 champions at 164. I don’t know why.