One of the biggest disincentives to buying Mayweather vs. McGregor isn’t the fact that Conor McGregor is probably going to lose. It’s the way Floyd Mayweather tends to make his opponents lose. Mayweather vs. Pacquiao was the biggest fight in history with over 4 million PPVs sold. That fight was universally panned as terrible after Floyd hugged and danced his way to a decision win that left no one happy.
This time, Floyd and his team are promising to ditch the defensive gameplan and go toe to toe with Conor.
“If he goes the distance, it’s a victory for him,” Mayweather told press at a media event from his gym. “In my eyes, also. He believes it’s not gonna go past four, and I believe that it’s not gonna go the distance at all. … This is billion-dollar fight, it’s an event. I think we both owe the fans as well as the public, everyone that’s tuning in, I think that we both should give them excitement.”
Floyd’s coach Nate Jones also talked a big game to the LA Times.
“We’re going to fight him,” Jones said. “We know this is something new for him. So, Floyd’s going to turn the gas on early. We’re going to fight him. We don’t think he can go past four rounds. So we’ll burn the gas out of him, make it a tough fight for him, let him see some things he’s never, hit him with some good body shots. I don’t want to give the whole game plan, but we got some things different.”
“We’re not going to box him. We’re going to fight him.”
Whether this is just pre-fight hype to try and get people to buy the card or the real game plan is unclear. We mentioned earlier in breakdowns of the fight that McGregor’s chances increase dramatically should Mayweather ditch his excellent defensive abilities to chase a finish. McGregor may be an untested boxer, but he’s a two division UFC champion with a cannon of a left hand. Myths about his shoddy cardio are largely overstated. If this isn’t a trick (for McGregor or the fans), it opens the fight up and makes it a much more interesting affair.
