By Allan Fox: Conor McGregor will wind up being stopped by Floyd Mayweather Jr. says trainer Virgil Hunter. He thinks the fight is going to end up going badly for the 29-year-old McGregor because of his experience in boxing. Hunter views this August 26 fight as potentially dangerous for McGregor unless he has someone humane that will step in and save him at some point by pulling the plug on the fight when it starts getting out of hand.
Hunter believes that Mayweather will either knock McGregor out with concussive blows or pound on him until someone is forced to step in and safe the UFC fighter from taking anymore punishment during the fight.
Mayweather and McGregor will be fighting on August 26 on Showtime pay-per-view from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Nevada State Athletic Commission has sanctioned the Mayweather-McGregor fight despite McGregor never having fought in a boxing match before. The fight has mismatch written all over it, as McGregor is coming into this affair with no experience in the squared circle, and he’s facing what was once the best fighter in boxing 2 years ago in 40-year-old Mayweather. You can’t say that Mayweather is the best any longer, given his age and inactivity, but he still likely has enough left in the tank to do a number on McGregor. One of these days in the distant future, you likely won’t see mismatches like this, as the sport will be better regulated to protect novice fighters like McGregor. But right, the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight has been given a green light. All you can hope is McGregor doesn’t get hurt too badly.
“He has to be concerned with how this is going to turn out,” said Hunter to Fighthype in talking about how Conor does against Mayweather. “It could get into a dangerous situation. He could come out of nowhere and end up a quitter. If we look at this logically, we wouldn’t even have public interest if we had a gold medalist coming out of the amateurs fighting Floyd Mayweather. We wouldn’t take a 15-year-old kid and put him in the ring with Floyd, and that’s basically what we’re doing in terms of experience, in terms of understanding the sport. We’re putting a beginner in the ring with Floyd Mayweather,” said Hunter.
It could get very dangerous for McGregor is he’s able to soak up punishment for any length of time at the hands of Mayweather. I don’t know that McGregor is going to be able to take a long beating without bowing out. When a fighter isn’t used to getting hit a lot, they tend to get taken out quickly when they meet up with someone that is able to inflict punishment. McGregor comes from the wrong background for him to be able to withstand a beating from Mayweather. McGregor’s stand-up fights in the UFC have mostly been one-sided with him taking his opponents out with big left hands. It’s easy for McGregor due to the smaller 4 oz. gloves the UFC uses compared to boxing. McGregor won’t have the ability to knockout Mayweather. He’s probably not going to be able to make contact enough times to give Mayweather any problems in the fight.
”I pretty much see the fight being stopped. If Floyd doesn’t stop him, I see it being stopped,” said Hunter in talking about McGregor’s plight against Mayweather. ”Somebody in there has to be prepared to be humane. It depends on what Floyd’s attitude is. Does he want to sit down and bring concussive punches or does he want to hit on him for a period of time and make him quit. Do I want to make him quit or do I want to get him, because if he detects any weakness fatigue-wise, if he detects any weaknesses skill-wise, the tendency is to start whipping on you to get you to the point where you either quit or I’m going to knock you out. I think that’s the direction we’re going to go in with this fight,” said Hunter.
McGregor likely will have talked to his trainer ahead of the fight to have him ready to pull him out of the fight as soon as it starts going against him. McGregor’s money is based on him and Mayweather hyping the fight rather than on his performance inside the ring on August 26. The hard part for McGregor is to act crazy and over the top enough to get boxing and MMA fans interested in purchasing the mismatch. Once the fight takes place, it doesn’t matter what happens.
McGregor will get his money even if he’s knocked out in the 1st round. That’s why it won’t be all that surprising if McGregor’s trainer throws in the towel in the early rounds to save his fighter for another day. It’s not as if McGregor’s boxing career will be hurt by him losing to Mayweather by a knockout, being that this is a one and done fight. It’s a one off for McGregor. He talked himself into a money fight against Mayweather under the rules of boxing.
After McGregor loses, he can go back to the UFC and continue fighting in that sport without his career being hurt. There’s a chance that Mayweather and McGregor could fight each other in the UFC. McGregor said that’s what Mayweather suggested when the two of them were talking during one of their face offs. I doubt that will happen though. If the boxing and MMA fans are unhappy with how their August 26 fight turns out, then there’s no chance that the same fans are going to want to pay to see the same two fighters face each other in the UFC. That would be like angry fans being asked to see a rematch between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Those two fighters would likely bring in very few buys if they fought each other in a rematch in 2015 following their lackluster fight in May of the same year.
Former welterweight champion Andre Berto thinks that McGregor is not going to do well against Mayweather. Berto says that if southpaw Pacquiao couldn’t do anything against Mayweather, then there’s no chance that McGregor will. In studying McGregor’s fighting style, Berto has noticed that he telegraphs his left hands each time he throws them. Berto sees that as a problem for McGregor when he faces Mayweather, who is very hard to hit even by well skilled boxers. McGregor is just now learning the ins and outs of boxing. He can’t learn enough in his short training camp for him to have a chance to beat Mayweather.
“At the end of the day, it’s boxing,” said Berto to Fighthub.com about the Mayweather-McGregor fight. “In MMA, you want to touch all those areas [different areas of MMA]. In boxing, that’s all we do. It’s a whole different world. You’re taking away a lot of things from McGregor. McGregor can kick, he can grapple, and he can do all that. You’re taking all that stuff away and forcing him to stand up on his 2 feet for 12 rounds against a master boxer,” said Berto.
McGregor not being able to grapple, kick, and use his submission holds puts him at a big disadvantage against Mayweather. McGregor is going to be forced to fight on his feet for 12 rounds without the ability to grapple or use submission hold against Mayweather. Fatigue is likely for McGregor if he doesn’t get stopped before that point. The thing is, once McGregor wears down, Mayweather is going to start putting hands on him in landing at will with his punches. The only thing that might stop Mayweather from finishing McGregor off is if he chooses to carry him for the entire 12 round fight like he did against Berto in his last fight in September 2015.
Many boxing fans felt that Mayweather carried Berto the full 12 rounds due to him not wanting to knockout the guy that he had hand-picked for the fight. Berto wasn’t someone that Mayweather was forced to fight as a champion or due to pressure from the boxing fans. Like with the McGregor fight, Mayweather was the one that hand-picked Berto. The fans didn’t want to see Mayweather fight Berto. The fans wanted to see Mayweather fight someone good like Keith Thurman. Mayweather didn’t want to do that, so he selected Berto and then toyed with him for the entire fight instead of looking to knock him out. Now we’re seeing the same thing. The boxing public didn’t demand that Mayweather fight McGregor. This is another opponent that Mayweather hand-picked. For that reason, we could see Mayweather carry the UFC fighter for the full 12 rounds in what could turn out to be just as boring as Mayweather’s fights against Pacquiao and Berto.
“Anything can happen. McGregor is a good fighter, but you’re talking about boxing,” said Berto. ”You’re talking about a southpaw. Floyd just fought the best southpaw in the last 15 years that throws punches and uses his legs, and he still couldn’t touch him. McGregor lets it be known when he throws a left hand. This is what he does. In his first professional boxing match, it’s show business. He’s the biggest thing in MMA. So, you’re bringing both of these worlds together. It’s going to be a collision. It’s going to be great entertainment for sure,” said Berto.
Berto is right about stating the obvious about the southpaw McGregor not being over-matched. If the blistering fast Pacquiao couldn’t land against Mayweather, then how is the slower, unskilled McGregor going to land. The reality is, McGregor won’t be landing. It’s going to be one-way traffic in this fight for as long as it lasts with Mayweather hitting McGregor at will in a fight that could turn out to be very boring.
