So did Conor McGregor hang for 10 rounds with one of the best boxers of all time or did Floyd Mayweather toy with the UFC champion, who was dipping his toe in the deep end of the boxing pool?
That depends upon who you ask.
McGregor and his boss, UFC president Dana White, felt like McGregor earned his boxing stripes. In fact, McGregor believes that now that he’s stepped into the boxing ring with Mayweather, he could defeat him in a rematch.
“I know if I went another go with him under boxing rules I’d get that win. I know that. I know I could do it in the first place,” McGregor said at a Q&A in Scotland in late September.
“He fought completely different than he [usually] fought. He couldn’t figure out what I was doing early on. And that’s it. I feel with the lessons I learned from that first fight, if I had another go around, I’d get it.”
While McGregor won the first three rounds according to most, he didn’t get credit from all circles for it. Many pundits, particularly in the boxing world, indicated that Mayweather allowed McGregor to win the first three rounds. It was all part of the undefeated boxer’s strategy to let McGregor punch himself out – something that certainly appeared to happen as the rounds wore on – so that he could put him away in the later rounds.
Mayweather finished the fight via TKO stoppage in the tenth round.
Mayweather took it a step further in a recent video published by Fight Hype, indicating that it wasn’t merely a strategy to wear McGregor down. Mayweather insisted he was carrying McGregor so that he could put on a show for the fans that paid for one of the highest grossing combat sports events of all time.
“Everybody trying to protest the Mayweather/McGregor fight, but I’m gonna tell you all the truth,” said Mayweather. “You know I carried McGregor. You know I made it look good for you all.”
In the latter part of his career, Mayweather became a boxing promoter. He’s had a rivalry with former opponent Oscar De La Hoya, who is also a boxing promoter. De La Hoya was a heavy critic of the Mayweather vs. McGregor bout, saying it would be bad for boxing.
Since the time that Mayweather defeated McGregor in August, however, De La Hoya has come out and said that he has been secretly training for a comeback and wants to fight McGregor, whom he said he would put away inside of two rounds.
Mayweather didn’t hold back when addressing De La Hoya’s apparent hypocrisy.
“Wasn’t Oscar De La Hoya the same one trying to protest and stop the fight?” he quipped. “Now, he trying to fight Conor McGregor. Is he a hypocrite or is he back on coke again?”
(Courtesy of UFC)
