By Allan Fox: The decision by Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor to fight 3 weeks before the Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight could have huge ramifications for both fights. Mayweather-McGregor will be going on August 26 on Showtime pay-per-view. Canelo-Golovkin will be taking place on HBO PPV on September 16.
If the fans have the means to purchase both cards, then they surely will It’s probably not going to work that way. The fans normally aren’t put in a position where they two back to back expensive PPV cards in consecutive months. Mayweather is doing Golden Boy Promotions no favors by his decision to stage his fight with McGregor 3 weeks before the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight. Mayweather could have waited until November or December to make the fight with McGregor. You could see why Golden Boy Promotions would be upset with Mayweather’s decision to fight McGregor in August in a move that undercuts the Canelo and Golovkin fight.
Canelo and Golovkin may need to try harder now to drum up interest in their September 16 fight. Mayweather-McGregor is going to draw away interest in the Canelo-GGG fight simply because they’re bigger personalities. Canelo doesn’t speak much English, and he’s not the type that will trash talk his opponents. Golovkin can speak a little English, and he’s often very polite when making comments about his opponents. Only recently that GGG has started to do a little trash talking.
It’s good news that Triple G is starting to give his unfiltered opinions on Canelo, but it might not be enough to get enough focus on their fight. This is war. I don’t know if Golden Boy, Canelo and Golovkin realize this or not. They’ve got to out-compete the Mayweather-McGregor fight by getting their message out there to promote and market their fight on September 16. Mayweather has drawn first blood by upstaging the Canelo-Golovkin by scheduling his fight with McGregor less than a month earlier on August 26.
You think that was an accident on Mayweather’s part to make that move? I don’t. I think Mayweather knew exactly what he was doing. He’s obviously thought long and hard in scheduling his fight with McGregor BEFORE the Canelo and Golovkin fight. Mayweather has got to know that having his fight 3 weeks before the Canelo fight will mean that his fight will do well on PPV, while the Canelo-Golovkin fight will suffer with fewer PPV buys.
Is Mayweather-McGregor fight worth purchasing?
If the typical boxing fan can only purchase one of the two PPV cards for August and September, the question you would have to ask is how much value the fans will get for each fight. Is Mayweather-McGregor worthy of purchasing over the Canelo vs. GGG fight? Let’s assume that the boxing fan only has money to purchase one of these 2 cards, is Mayweather and McGregor going to give the average fan the most bang for his buck? On paper, the Mayweather fight doesn’t seem much like a sporting event. It looks more like an exhibition type of fight than a true professional boxing match. To be sure, McGregor is a GREAT fighter in the MMA sport. He’s second to none in the UFC, where McGregor holds 2 division titles, and he’s show himself to be above the pack with his talent. However, McGregor has never fought a boxing match before, and he’s picking what could be the best fighter in the sport in Mayweather. Considering that McGregor has never fought in a boxing ring before, it would tell you that he’s not going to have much of any chance of beating Mayweather. If you’re going to ask which fight is going to give more value for the boxing public, I’d have to say the Golovkin match is the far better fight than the Mayweather-McGregor match.
Why Mayweather-McGregor can hurt Canelo-Golovkin PPV numbers
– Fans feeling cheated by Mayweather-Mayweather: This has got to be the major reason why the Canelo-Golovkin fight could be negatively impacted by the Mayweather fight coming 3 weeks before their fight. Like with the dud between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in 2015, many of the boxing fans were angry at the lack of action in that fight. Subsequently, the PPV numbers dropped off for the boxing matches that came after that fight. Was the drop off of PPV numbers due to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight being such a bad fight? I think a lot of people believe that theory. It stands to reason that if Mayweather-McGregor is just as bad as the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight, then it could have the same consequences for the Canelo bout against Triple G. Mayweather and McGregor could hurt the Canelo fight to the point where it brings in only a fraction of the PPV numbers that it originally would have.
– The high cost of Mayweather-McGregor fight: Like I mentioned before, if boxing fans purchase the Mayweather & McGregor fight for $100 in August, those same fans may not have money to come up with another $75 to see the Canelo and Triple G fight in September. There’s a chain reaction that starts with the Mayweather-McGregor fight that could negatively impact the Canelo-Golovkin fight. The high cost of PPV nowadays is prohibitive for many boxing fans. The fans are already paying over $100 per month just for regular cable in many cases. When you add another $100 for the Mayweather-McGregor fight, and then throw in $75 for the Canelo vs. GGG fight, it becomes too much for the average fan. You add in the costs of those fights, and it’s like paying rent. It’s too much.
Does McGregor know how to box well enough to beat Mayweather?
Conor McGregor just recently took up boxing. He’s spent his upbringing learning MMA, which involves a lot of submission holds, kicks and wrestling on a mat. It’s a completely different sport than boxing. It has very little in common with boxing. There is a standup aspect to MMA fighting, but it’s very primitive barroom type slugging. The boxing that you get in an MMA fight is more like what you’d see in an old TV western type fight. There’s a lot of long, badly telegraphed right hands that are thrown. The jab is almost never used by an MMA fighter. It’s usually just big homerun type punches. The southpaw McGregor likes to throw short punches, which are usually more than enough for him to win in his UFC fights. It’s doubtful that McGregor is going to be able to learn enough boxing in just one training camp to make a fight of it against Mayweather.
Will Mayweather fight at half speed to give McGregor a chance?
This is something that I believe is a very real possibility. If you saw how Floyd Mayweather Jr. fought Andre Berto in their fight in September 2015, you’d have noticed that it looked more like a sparring fight than a real one. Mayweather toyed with Berto for 12 rounds, fighting in 1st gear, looking lazy, bored and not doing much to step on the gas to bring any excitement to the fight. Mayweather could have embarrassed Berto by using his speed to throw combinations until he got a stoppage. Instead, Mayweather kept Berto around by fighting in a lackadaisical manner for the entire fight. The way that Mayweather fought Berto is likely the blueprint in how he’s going to fight McGregor. Mayweather won’t want to destroy McGregor, because it’ll make him look bad for choosing an inexperienced novice with a 0-0 record to fight in an expensive PPV fight. So instead of destroying McGregor, Mayweather will just toy with him for 12 rounds. The boxing fans that purchase the fight will still likely be furious at how boring the fight is. The net effect of the fans paying top dollar to see the boring Mayweather vs. McGregor fight will almost surely spill over into Golden Boy’s promotion of Canelo and Golovkin 3 weeks later. One thing effects the other. It’s sad and unfortunate, but I think that’s going to be the case with these 2 separate fights.