Conor McGregor truly believed he could beat the finest boxer of his generation, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
And why not? After all, his every other dream had come true, brought to life by the law of attraction. It had worked in the past, even when it made no …
ConorMcGregor truly believed he could beat the finest boxer of his generation, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
And why not? After all, his every other dream had come true, brought to life by the law of attraction. It had worked in the past, even when it made no sense to anyone else. Why couldn’t it work again on the grandest stage of them all?
For nine magical minutes, with thousands of fans cheering his every blow, McGregor appeared on his way to making combat sports history and actualizing his wildest fantasy. The man critics said shouldn’t even be in the ring was the aggressor, throwing punches in volume and bullying Mayweather in the clinch.
HBO analyst Max Kellerman famously claimed McGregor wouldn’t land a single punch. Instead, he snapped the boxing champion’s head back several times and earned the respect boxing analysts refused to initially concede.
But when Mayweather started fighting back in the fourth round, and the fists began flying on both sides, belief turned out not to be enough. Not when pitted against more than three decades of carefully honed craft. McGregor searched for a weakness and found none. All he found was guile and two balled fists, carefully preserved for one final violent dance.
Despite his best attempts to delay the inevitable, McGregor soon found himself at a loss, heaving for breath and eating punch after punch. Mayweather landed 58 percent of the power punches he winged McGregor‘s way, many of them accurate blows that accumulated as the minutes flew past.
By the ninth round, Mayweather was chasing McGregor around the ring, the reckless gunslinger of his youth back for one final showdown. McGregor teetered but never fell. His courage throughout was never in doubt. In the 10th round, referee Robert Byrd stepped in as a hurt and exhausted McGregor wobbled around the ring.
He didn’t win, but even in defeat McGregor defied expectations.
“I thought I took the early rounds pretty handily,” McGregor said after the fight. “He had to change his style, and he adjusted.
“He’s composed. He’s not that fast, he’s not that powerful, but boy is he composed. He was patient with his shots. He’s had a great career. What can I say? I had a bit of fun and hopefully entertained the fans.”
In the arena at least, fans seemed more than satisfied. The Irish fans had painted the town orange, green and white in the days before the fight, and their passion inspired—but in the end it’s only you and another man in the ring. They roared every time McGregor appeared on the big screen and chanted throughout the night, most intensely after McGregor stuck his tongue out defiantly in the sixth round.
That, of course, was also when things took a turn for the worse. Cheers were not enough when a steady diet of body shots and the rigorous requirements of the ring finally began to weigh on the UFC star. Three straight rights rocked him in the seventh, and by the ninth round Mayweather was routinely landing flush punches to the head. It was violence delivered in intimate quarters, first in a sudden, sharp staccato and later in a melody of clubbing, almost reckless blows.
Before the fight, Mayweather, known as a brilliant defensive wizard who put out flames rather than fan them, promised he’d come forward and bring the action. It was a pledge he kept after a slow start, pursuing McGregor throughout the middle rounds in a way fans hadn’t seen in years.
“Our game plan was to take our time, go to him, let him shoot his shots early and then take him out down the stretch,” Mayweather said. “We know in MMA he fights for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, he started to slow down. I guaranteed to everybody that this wouldn’t go the distance.”
As the clock continued to click, McGregor‘s chances at victory receded further into the rear view. Mayweather walked right through McGregor‘s increasingly languid punches and delivered punishment in a fight that became one-sided quickly.
The two men brought the best out of each other. After all the talk about McGregor‘s fearsome power, Mayweather wanted to prove a point by being the aggressor. His total disregard for the MMA fighter’s ability to hurt him let Mayweather put caution aside and swing for the fences with every punch. That, in turn, allowed McGregor to show his mettle and courage.
“I could have easily outboxed and counterpunchedConorMcGregor all night,” Mayweather said. “That’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to go out with a bang.”
Somehow, even in Mayweather’s best moments, it was McGregor who came out looking like a hero. He was in his first professional boxing match and hanging tough with a legitimate legend, a man who will be remembered as one of the best of all time.
“He’s a lot better than I thought he’d be,” Mayweather admitted. “He’s a tough competitor, but I was the better man tonight.”
It was an event where, amazingly, everyone walked away a winner.
Mayweather managed to surpass the great Rocky Marciano by pushing his record to 50-0 in his final bout. Promoters most likely broke gate and pay-per-view records. And McGregor proved to the doubters that he was, if not a masterful technician, a valiant warrior.
“He did the UFC proud,” Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe said. “He did his country proud. And he should keep his head held high.”
Before the bout, internet critics ran rampant. But there was a clear disconnect between some reporters and the public, which embraced the fight and made it the kind of spectacle few will forget, half Evel Knievel stunt show and half athletic contest.
On Twitter, there were 9.1 million tweets about the bout, indicating epic interest. PPV demand was so high that servers crashed in California and Florida, causing a delay in the main event. In Las Vegas, Irish fans abounded. While many couldn’t afford the high prices to get into the fight, they packed the restaurants and casinos selling the fight on closed circuit for $165.
“You have to have negative people,” UFC President Dana White said. “It creates debate and back-and-forth. But ConorMcGregor is a fighter, and we saw a fight tonight.”
McGregor may not have walked away with a victory, but as Mayweather departs the stage, McGregor did enough to snatch the combat sports crown. When he returns to the Octagon, his star will shine as brightly as ever. He went into the fight as the biggest star UFC has ever produced. He leaves it as nothing short of an icon, bigger than MMA, boxing or even athletics.
After the fight, he came out to address the media in a custom-made suit, carrying a bottle of Irish whiskey and having a heck of a good time.
“It was a bit of fun, right?” he asked Mayweather. “A bit of fun.”
If he wasn’t a winner, he was doing a darned good impression of one. McGregor, strangely enough, is at his most endearing in defeat. He gave credit to his conqueror and acknowledged his own faults, all while never losing his smile or track of the fact the future is promising indeed. Still just 29, he seemed open to opportunities, whether in the UFC Octagon or the boxing ring.
“Oh, that Irish whiskey tastes so good,” he yelled at one point, addressing every question with honesty and verve, reveling in a promise kept.
“I’m just relishing in it right now,” McGregor said. “…I love a good fight, and tonight was a damn good fight.”
McGregor, most on press row agreed, had earned the right to smile and have a drink or three. He stepped into the lion’s den with the world waiting for him to be a laughingstock. Instead, he left an even bigger star.
The past was already little more than a memory, and the future stared us right in the face. Everyone walked away a winner—in combat sports, you can’t ask for more than that.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Top NFL teams have sophisticated video setups, state-of-the-art systems that allow players to pull from a collection that includes every play from every game around the league. Data operations in Major League Baseball are…
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Top NFL teams have sophisticated video setups, state-of-the-art systems that allow players to pull from a collection that includes every play from every game around the league. Data operations in Major League Baseball are run by math wizards from prestigious universities, eggheads devoted to finding inefficiencies and ruthlessly capitalizing on them.
At Jackson Wink MMA, the top mixed martial arts gym in the world, they have nothing more than a PlayStation 4, institutional memories and a spindle of handmade DVD compilations—bootlegs, mostly, since the UFC has stopped providing official video to help fighters prepare for their foes.
The Jackson Wink team helped Jon Jones dispatch former Olympian Daniel Cormier twice. They prepared Holly Holm for the seemingly unbeatable Ronda Rousey. Both opponents were not just outfought. They were outthought and outcoached, too.
But even the savvy team here has never met a challenge like the one Bleacher Report presented to them in the weeks leading up to the biggest fight in modern combat sports history: guiding a neophyte boxer to an upset victory over the greatest pugilist of his generation. How, we asked MMA’s sharpest minds, can one make the impossible possible?
How would you prepare Conor McGregor to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr.?
Greg Jackson was not especially amused by the task at hand. Between training his fighters for actual, not theoretical bouts and an outside business working with military and law enforcement, Jackson is busy to the point of exhaustion. Though he loves a good puzzle, this one seemed like it was missing too many pieces to solve.
“On paper, there’s no way he can win,” Jackson says. “You have the best pro boxers, who trained their whole life, and couldn’t come close. You just have to hope that age could be the deciding factor. But [Mayweather’s] not the kind of fighter who ages poorly. He doesn’t have the mileage. A super offensive fighter who doesn’t have great defense—someone like Joe Louis—age catches up with you quick. Floyd’s defensive ability has kept him sharp. Even if his reflexes are gone, he’s so layered and smart. He’s a tricky puzzle.”
On paper, there’s no way [McGregor] can win. You have the best pro boxers, who trained their whole life, and couldn’t come close. — MMA coach Greg Jackson
Watching Mayweather is a revelation, even for a coach like Jackson who has seen it all.
On screen, Mayweather is demolishing Diego Corrales, a fighter who was supposed to push him to his limits. That version of Mayweather, still just 23 years old, darts in and out with supernatural speed, eschewing all of boxing’s orthodoxies and rules. Pure quickness is his permission slip to do whatever he wants.
“Speed’s a big deal,” Jackson says. “It really is. For sports at this level, fast makes a big difference. He’s just so fast. Pop, pop, tie him up with both hands. And there’s no retaliation.”
Laying hands on Mayweather is a difficult proposition, even for demonstrably excellent fighters. He controls every exchange and, for much of his career, has only faced danger when he consciously has put himself at risk to throw combinations of his own.
“Floyd’s a great defensive fighter,” says Mike Winkeljohn, a former kickboxing champion and the striking coach at Jackson Wink MMA. “He spends all that time hiding behind his shoulder. It’s hard to hit him on the center line when his head is so far back. He decides when he’s fighting. He can hide in his shell, pop out to punch you, then hide again. And you can’t do anything about it. It would have no use in MMA, with kicks and takedowns, but under boxing rules, it’s a real headache to solve.
“Some people think it’s not exciting. Who’s smarter? Him, or the public that wants a war? He can make $100 million without suffering brain damage. That’s two W’s as far as I’m concerned.”
Tired of watching Mayweather dominate Corrales, we search out times in his 20-year career when he’s been hurt, hoping to find a weakness. They are so few and far between that years often separate the instances of adversity.
There’s a speed shot from Shane Mosley, still a crackerjack fighter even in his declining years, and another by Zab Judah. These are dismissed for cause, requiring a physical ability that McGregor doesn’t possess. More interestingly, DeMarcus Corley scores several times with a southpaw right hook. This piques the coaches’ interest, because McGregor, too, is left-hand dominant.
But even in his worst moments, Mayweather still shines.
“He’s so smart when he gets hurt,” Jackson says. “Floyd takes it and stays calm when he’s hurt. He ties up, he uses his footwork, he dips down—and then he turns it around. He’s so dangerous. Composed and still in the fight. That’s just a guy in the process. He’s reading. He’s looking. He’s not thinking about anything. He’s just reading the opponent.
“It’s not like Conor has a bigger punch than any of these guys. And no one has knocked [Mayweather] out with one punch. And he has all these things he can do when he gets hurt. He’s layered. Conor is not layered. He got hurt against Diaz and immediately shot for a takedown. When he got hurt and in trouble, he didn’t know what to do. It’s rare to see Conor in real trouble and able to come back from it. We’ve seen Floyd in trouble several times, and he’s always found his way back into the fight and turn it right around.”
The best boxers of this generation have tried and failed to meet the Mayweather test. He’s faced down swarmers, like a game Ricky Hatton and a persistent Jose Luis Castillo. He’s beaten the speedy technicians like Mosley and brawlers like Marcos Maidana. He even outclassed the uniquely gifted Manny Pacquiao in a manner that left little doubt of what the outcome would have been at any point in their respective careers.
“Pacquiao’s speed is insane, even now,” Jackson says. “To be able to stand there and make him look slow is insane. That’s why Conor needs to be sparring the fastest boxers they can find, even if they are a couple of weight classes lighter.
“He needs to address the speed problem and figure out what he’s going to do. Is he going to clinch? What you don’t want is that shock. Like, ‘Oh, s–t, I didn’t even see that right hand.’ Then you can’t do anything but throw caution to the wind, and Floyd is way too smart for that. Conor’s not as fast as these guys—and in MMA, he doesn’t have to be. He has so many more tools. He can be clever. But boxing is all about getting from A to B faster than your opponent.”
McGregor has never stood across the ring from anyone like Mayweather. A fighter with so little formal boxing training or technical acumen typically would never come anywhere near a boxer on Mayweather’s level.
“Floyd can give Conor trouble with fast counters and little slip-offs to the side and quick punches. He has tremendous eyes,” Winkeljohn says. “It’s a gift, but it’s also the result of study, hard work and a lot of repetition.
“He knows, when a guy throws his right hand and his weight shifts a certain way, his opponent can only attack on two angles—and he’s ready to defend those or slip it. Over time, it becomes almost an unconscious competence through repetition and mitt work and just being around the gym and boxing for so long.”
When it comes down to pure boxing prowess, McGregor will be the worst fighter Mayweather has faced since he was a teenager. It’s a truth that’s hard to avoid when game-planning.
In 2007, Hatton gave Mayweather an extended challenge, pursuing him into the ropes over and over again, seemingly indefatigable. It’s an interesting, proven strategy to, at the very least, make Mayweather work hard for his 50th victory.
“Of course,” someone says, “Hatton was a professional boxer.”
The remark breaks the room up. Only in 2017 would someone reward a non-boxer with the sport’s richest prize—a bout with the champion. More than that, it’s widely believed that McGregor’s complete ignorance will be his greatest strength. The experts, however, aren’t sold.
“I think Conor’s going to find some initial success with angles, timing and tactics that Floyd hasn’t seen before,” Brandon Gibson, Jon Jones’ coach, says. “But I think Floyd will be able to make the adjustments quickly. As the fight goes on, his advantage will grow.”
I think Conor’s going to find some initial success with angles, timing and tactics that Floyd hasn’t seen before. — MMA coach Brandon Gibson
Some of the fighters who have gathered around, attracted either to the tape study or the smell of hamburgers in the air as we make it a working lunch, are less delicate in their critiques.
“Conor’s going to get smoked. There’s no way,” says Lando Vannata, a rising star in the UFC’s lightweight division. “I’ve sparred with decent boxers. It’s a different f–king game. You’ve got to be a good f–king boxer to even have a chance in the ring.
“He’s too slow. He’s never fought anybody with good backwards or evasive movement. Most people he’s fought have been forward-moving fighters. Not many MMA fighters are comfortable moving back.”
“No chance,” he says in summary. “No chance in hell.”
One of the best boxers at Jackson Wink is Kevin “Cub” Swanson. Unlike most of the people offering unsolicited punditry on the fight, he’s been in the ring with the best fighters in both MMA and boxing—and he doesn’t believe the prospect of McGregor finding small pockets of success is particularly outlandish.
“In general, when I spar boxers, I give them a lot of trouble because I’m unorthodox. I throw a lot of overhands, I switch stance, I change tempos,” says Swanson, a contender in the UFC’s featherweight division. “And when I’m tired, I just grab them. And I’m the better wrestler, so I don’t mind being in the clinch and tying up hands.
“An MMA fighter has a lot of tools they aren’t used to. I land a lot of overhand rights on boxers because most boxers see it as sloppy technique because they throw straight rights. If we engage in the pocket and I see them pulling back, I’ll throw a big overhand, a loopy one, and it hits them flush. Because for them, it’s not something any other training partner throws. How is Floyd going to train for that kind of unpredictability?”
McGregor, though, has spent less time training with elite boxers than even Swanson, who trains regularly with top boxers like Lucas Matthysse and Tim Bradley. Would he be able to find the same level of success? If so, would it be enough?
Speaking with his trademark humility, Swanson has no illusions about his place in boxing’s pecking order.
“The top-, top-level guys, I have to be in incredible shape to give them work,” he says. “All their punches, but their jabs in particular, are a lot sharper and stiffer than an MMA fighter’s. I am at the level of sparring partner for them. I can help them out, and they aren’t putting me away. Against lower-level boxers on their way up, I’d say I win the majority of rounds.”
McGregor, of course, is aiming higher than a lower-level “sparring partner.” But the skill sets he needs, though related to those he uses to dominate in the UFC, are disparate enough that success in one field hardly prepares an athlete for elite competition in the other. Everyone in the gym has an analogy, from the hoary old “apples and oranges” to contrasting tennis and baseball players who “both hit balls.”
“You take the fastest wide receiver in the NFL, put them up against Usain Bolt, and suddenly they don’t look so fast at all,” Gibson says. “What makes them effective in the NFL is their ability to cut and juke and catch the ball. All the things that make Conor such a great martial artist don’t necessarily translate into the ability to become a champion boxer.
“MMA is fought at a lot different pace, and you use different muscle groups. There’s a different endurance capacity. Being a well-conditioned MMA fighter has as much to do with boxing as being a well-conditioned basketball player trying to step into the ring. I think it’s that different.”
The differences extend all the way to the equipment. While the two men will fight in non-standardeight-ounce gloves, those are still a huge departure from what McGregor is used to.
Big, padded boxing gloves don’t necessarily dull power. The main impact, in fact, isn’t offensive at all. It’s their use as a defensive tool that changes tactics completely. It’s such a dramatic difference-maker that coaches at Jackson Wink forbid a boxing-style defense in their sparring sessions.
“MMA gloves allow a lot of force in a little area and allow you to find the holes in the shell defense,” Jackson says. “A bigger glove, used defensively, disperses the force. They can hold that high guard, like Mayweather often does against southpaw fighters, and it’s difficult to land a clean punch. In MMA, it’s just a matter of time before one sneaks through the smaller gloves.”
As we watch a succession of McGregor’s greatest hits, it would be wrong to leave the impression that the coaches and fighters present don’t value his ability. To a man, there is grudging admiration for his prowess. Many have had great personal interactions with him, admitting he’s different behind the scenes than he is when on television selling a fight.
“He’s a sweetheart,” Jackson says with a smile.
Gibson recalls him bowing to the coaches as a sign of respect.
“A true martial artist,” he says.
They point out how easily he pressures his foes, turning them into little more than wild beasts at times as their back foot touches the cage. Anger, fear or frustration prods them into action. Through it all, McGregor waits patiently for an opportunity to throw his deadly left hand.
“He made Aldo so mad that he gave the fight away,” Jackson said. “Conor just stepped back and said, ‘Thank you very much.’ He’s hoping to get under Mayweather’s skin and make him reckless. But this whole show, it’s normal for Floyd. He’s had guys talk s–t to him for his whole career. That’s the culture of boxing. So I’m not sure the trash talk can get Floyd out of his zone. I don’t think he can rattle him psychologically.”
In a cage, McGregor presents quite a conundrum. Any incorrect choice becomes potentially fight-ending because of his power, growing discipline and commitment to the game plans his team develops for each fight. It’s just that so much of what he uses to articulate his particular brand of violence is inapplicable inside a boxing ring.
“On the technical side, a lot of his success is built on kicks,” Vannata says. “It makes him unpredictable and make his punches easier to find. They get in people’s heads because they don’t know what’s coming. When they commit to a strike, they only half-commit.
“In boxing, he’ll only have his hands. His whole game becomes the pull left hand. Bait you, bait you, bait you, pull left hand. I think Mayweather’s defense is too good for that s–t. All those other tools disappear. None of that other s–t that makes him so good will be going on.”
The specificity of his skill set is what makes Jackson believe not bringing in a boxing trainer was the right move for McGregor, who chose to stay with his MMA coach John Kavanagh and his regular team.
“The hired-gun boxing coach would want to make so many changes. That’s not how we do it in boxing. He doesn’t know what Conor needs to do to win,” Jackson says. “He knows how to train a boxer for a boxing match, not how to train an MMA fighter for a boxing match. He’d spend eight weeks trying to teach him a decent jab. And they still wouldn’t be happy.”
Most boxing trainers would emphasize the battle of footwork, usually the defining element when a great left-handed boxer meets a great right-handed boxer. Both fighters in these kinds of style matchups will move constantly, looking to get their lead foot on the outside, opening up an angle for their power hand to find the mark.
It’s the basic building block for a southpaw boxer, the skill from which everything else follows. In MMA, it’s such an afterthought that you can often watch an entire fight and never hear the announcer mention that one of the fighters is left-handed.
“In MMA, it doesn’t matter if you beat his lead foot. He can still throw a side kick or any number of techniques to neutralize that angle,” Jackson says. “In boxing, it’s a huge deal because you only have a couple of tools. There’s no doubt Conor is an amazing fighter. He hits hard, he’s very confident, he has good eyes. It’s just two different sports.”
Swanson believes McGregor’s best chance lies with a template Castillo created in 2002 and Maidana refined to its essence 12 years later. Constant pressure, rough tactics and looping, almost absurdly wide punches shocked Mayweather the way pure boxing prowess never could.
I would try to expose the rules, grab him, beat up his arms and hang on him. Do the things a bigger fighter should do. — MMA fighter Kevin Swanson
“Maidana was throwing this overhand that was almost coming straight down on top of his head,” Swanson says. “Borderline illegal, but Floyd is used to catching those on his shoulder, and Floyd was going over his shoulder. Things like that make it interesting to me.
“I would try to expose the rules, grab him, beat up his arms and hang on him. Do the things a bigger fighter should do.”
“This would be a great strategy,” Jackson agrees. “Go all out for three rounds and see if you can catch him. If not, oh well. You tried. If I were putting together a game plan, I’d say, ‘Cover up, stuff him and put him against his ropes.’ You’ll have to eat clean shots to get there, and it’s a strategy that degrades over time in its effectiveness. But Pacquiao had his only success there. Maidana had his only success there. You can try it on the outside, but he’s just so fast.”
This would be comfortable, well-trodden ground for most MMA fighters—a path they could gleefully take. But McGregor, despite a size advantage that will probably be at least 15 pounds by fight night, is no bruiser. He’s a careful, calculating fighter who hasn’t rushed in wildly since learning some harsh lessons early in his career.
He’s become a fistic legend doing what he does, not yielding to others or letting them dictate how or where the fight will take place. The last time he did so, a stunning loss to last-minute replacement Nate Diaz, may have cured him of that brand of hubris for all time.
“I don’t see Conor changing his style to accommodate anybody,” Swanson says. “I would imagine he is just going to pressure and counter off of Floyd’s punches. Even when I fought his training partner, Artem Lobov, I noticed he liked to try to slip to the power side and come back with a big shot.”
Winkeljohn, the gruff elder statesman of the gym, once familiar to night owls for repeated appearances on the kickboxing shows that used to populate ESPN2 in the wee hours, believes he should do exactly that.
Leaping up often to demonstrate his concepts on a Bleacher Report editor, Winkeljohn thinks reliance on typical boxing strategies would have disastrous consequences for the MMA star. After all, Mayweather will approach $1 billion in career earnings after this fight because of his unique ability to thrive when bouts follow a particular form.
Rather than bend to those expectations and deliver his version of a boxing match, pitting two months of training against 30 years of finely honed, hard-earned expertise, Winkeljohn believes McGregor should do what he knows best—blistering left hands from just outside the range Mayweather is used to.
“If you take 1,000 boxing coaches, 999 of them are going to say the same thing. Wouldn’t it be better to be the one doing something different? Instead of trying to get the angle on Floyd with his lead foot, I think the best way to attack him is from his live side. From Floyd’s right,” Winkeljohn says. “I would actually suggest Conor move very far to his left, just outside of where Floyd would normally look to counterpunch him. And then he should just hammer him.
“Floyd can’t hide behind his shoulder there and would have to change his entire footwork and stance to defend himself. As soon as Floyd adjusts his right foot, his right hand is out of the picture. Done. It’s useless. He can sweep a left hook, but that’s it.”
It’s a strategy that builds of something McGregor is already good at. He slipped right to dodge reckless Eddie Alvarez punches, following them with his trademark, reaching left hand to win the lightweight title.
McGregor likely will either win or lose as “The Notorious,” not some pale facsimile of what he believes a boxer should be. He will attempt to goad Mayweather into a rare mistake—a right hand, perhaps, that he will slip to his left. The left hand will follow, not from the angle preferred by most southpaw boxers, but from his opponent’s power side. It will cross 45 degrees and 74 inches, landing squarely on Mayweather’s jaw.
There’s no doubt McGregor has visualized it a million times. He’s seen it.
Will we?
“It goes back to why MMA started in the first place,” Swanson says. “You have two different striking styles. Let’s see what happens when these two people square off against each other.
“It’s the same reason why people wanted to watch Brock Lesnar in MMA. ‘What if?’ It’s that curiosity that will make people need to know what’s going to happen. At the end of the day, if Conor wins, nobody wants to be the guy who says ‘I missed it.’ Because what if?”
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
Floyd Mayweather is really rich. You may have heard that already. Probably from him.
Money, for the famously undefeated boxer, is not just something he makes—it’s a lifestyle, nickname and friend. It travels with him in huge bricks, sometim…
Floyd Mayweather is really rich. You may have heard that already. Probably from him.
Money, for the famously undefeated boxer, is not just something he makes—it’s a lifestyle, nickname and friend. It travels with him in huge bricks, sometimes in a duffel bag, sometimes laid out in front of him on a private plane, his ever-present raisond’etre.
But, as he waits in the greenroom for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, finally getting an opportunity to answer my inquiries, Mayweather doesn‘t seem particularly keen on discussing his taxes, investments or vast wealth. How much money is Floyd Mayweather worth? How many properties around the country does he own?
“It’s a lot,” he tells Bleacher Report. “…It is all about diversifying yourself and seeing an opportunity when it comes across your desk. I get a ton of offers to invest in various entities and pick the opportunities I am comfortable with and see future potential with.”
His hesitance to go into detail is OK with me. Because Floyd Mayweather isn’t just some rich guy jetting around the world doing rich guy things. Mayweather, at 40, remains the most polarizing figure in sports.
“There are those who don’t like his persona and consider him a villain and want him to lose,” Showtime Sports executive vice president Stephen Espinoza says. “There’s a part of the audience that wants to see success and hubris collapse upon itself.
“Others love him. This is a guy who has flaws like all of us do. But he took himself from the humblest of beginnings to record-breaking wealth. In less than one generation. And without the help of a major sponsor. He’s a relatively small, African-American boxer who doesn‘t knock people out. The fact that, without any corporate support, he has generated the amount of wealth he has, is remarkable.”
Going into his fight Saturday against UFC star ConorMcGregor, he’s staked his reputation on perfection. His prizefighting record stands at 49-0. One more victory will leave him alone on the mountaintop, above even the great Rocky Marciano for all eternity. When the bout is over, promoter Leonard Ellerbe tells me, his career earnings will exceed $1 billion.
This success, and his unyielding desire to tell you all about it, hasn’t made Mayweather beloved. In fact, the popular consensus is that he’s a boring fighter, a runner. A criminal and a coward.
“I don’t have time for negative people or thoughts in my life,” he says. “I will continue to enjoy my success and live the way I want to. I wish everyone the best in what they have and do with it too.”
There are dueling narratives competing to tell Mayweather’s tale. In one, he’s TBE. The best ever. Yes, that includes Muhammad Ali. Yes, that includes “Sugar” Ray Robinson. If anyone reading is old enough to care, yes, that includes Joe Louis, too.
Others proclaim him a carefully manufactured myth, a good fighter, sure, but nothing special when judged against historical peers.
Which is true?
The latter seems to be winning the war in the public’s consciousness. But is it fair? Are we critical of Mayweather by rote, accepting a story that is, in the parlance of our times, little more than fake news?
Who is Floyd Mayweather? How did he, a small, unlikable African-American stylist in a sport increasingly dominated by ethnic heroes and knockout artists, become the biggest star in the game? How did we find ourselves here, on the eve of a bout many consider little better than spectacle and far from the hallowed days of our youths, when, in our hoary memories at least, this all meant something?
That’s five question marks in a row with nary an answer. Perhaps then, this is an issue that requires more robust study. On the eve of his final bout, let’s look back at every Mayweather fight, from first to last, with fresh eyes, discovering the truth, if such a thing exists, in the process.
Boxing promoters lie. In many ways, it’s central to the profession. They lie to fighters, to television executives, to each other and, ultimately, to themselves.
Most often, the public is their willing patsy. We know they score lower than “used car salesman” or “congressman” on any metric of integrity. We fall for them anyway, trudging into the trenches again and again to have our hearts broken.
See that lumpy former college football lineman? Totally the next Tyson. This kid over here with passable speed? He’s the next Willie Pep.
Boxing promoters lie. But sometimes, whether an accident of the universe or an intentional glimpse behind the curtain, a truth escapes into this world, slipping out of the torrent of never-ending hokum and inanity, waiting to be discovered.
Which was true when promoter Bob Arum called Mayweather “the successor in a line that starts with Ray Robinson, goes to Muhammad Ali, then Sugar Ray Leonard” after a 1998 fight? It’s hard to say. On the one hand, Mayweather was less than two years into his pro career. On the other, he had dispatched respected super featherweight champion Genaro Hernandez in just eight rounds.
It was clear, whether he was the next Leonard or not, that Mayweather was on track to become something special.
“He was praised as a likely savant early on because he was lightning quick and had great hands,” boxing historian Patrick Connor says. “Many recognized that kind of precognitive ability to defend and counter. And as it became more clear that we had an actual great fighter on our hands and not just some guy saying he was great, more scrutiny came with that.”
Watching Mayweather’s career, especially in his formative years, is a revelation. Today’s Mayweather, so cool and calculating, can be seen only in glimpses. Instead, an apex predator lurked in the ring, diving in with left hooks and straight right hands, willing to exchange when reward outweighed risk.
In the first defense of his title, he faced down Angel Manfredy, who walked to the ring carrying a devil mask and accompanied by Kid Rock. He walked out with only shreds of his pride. Manfredy was supposed to provide a stern test. Instead, in a bubble tent set up in the parking lot of a Native American casino in Miami, he provided an object lesson—speed kills.
“At 130-135 pounds he was wrecking shop and seemed able to hurt most opponents,” Connor says. “That changed as he moved up, and especially at welterweight. The jump from 140 to 147 has always been considered a huge one, historically. And when the welterweight division is thick, even more so.”
In the ring, he made even the toughest bouts look comically easy. Against “Goyo” Vargas, a former featherweight title holder, he even took time out to correct HBO play-by-play man Jim Lampley as he claimed Floyd had switched to southpaw for the second time in the fight.
“Third time,” Mayweather, who happened to be in the corner near the announce team, replied.
“Thanks for the correction,” a bemused Lampley replied.
That fight, cakewalk that it was, is a turning point in Mayweather’s career. He injured his hands in the bout, a problem that would plague him throughout his career. By the time Mayweather made the move to 140 pounds and above, he was a different fighter.
“His bad hands likely played a part. How much isn’t clear,” Connor says. “But I also think, as Floyd understood that keeping his 0 intact became important to how he sold himself, adopting a style that protected that even more was likely an attractive option for him.”
To an opponent looking to do him harm, modern Mayweather is little more than a mirage, a wisp of smoke so delicate that he dissipates as punches move nothing but the air around him. Lots of pro boxers play defense with their feet, turning a 36-minute bout into a half-marathon. Mayweather, especially as a young man, could play that game with the best of them.
But, despite his reputation, he’s rarely been that kind of fighter. He doesn‘t have to be. And, perhaps, that disdain hurts his foes even more than losing—he’s so overwhelmingly confident, so in control of a boxing ring, that he doesn‘t even do them the courtesy of running.
He stands right in the pocket, or even back against the ropes, still as a statue, all but begging to be demolished. In theory, this gives his opponent a chance. But in reality, as HBO commentator Larry Merchant pointed out during the Vargas fight, “they have Mayweather right where he wants them.”
Once there, finally free to unleash their pent-up fury, they find Mayweather has disappeared.What makes it a magic trick is that his body rarely moves at all. He’s there somewhere behind a barrage of forearms, shoulders and endless right hands, mind racing, eyes darting, processing information at a faster rate than anyone else in the sport.
Mayweather is cable internet, his foes a squawking dial-up connection still trying to connect while Floyd is already in motion.
What makes him great is incremental. He never flails out of the way in panic mode, no matter how dark the heart of the man standing in front of him, quarters so tight that he can feel each breath that escapes his opponent’s body.
He moves his head exactly as much as he needs to for a punch to miss, remaining close and composed enough to strike back, right hand darting out like the tongue of a snake, retracting before anyone ever knows he’s moved at all.
You can watch in slow motion as the great Miguel Cotto comes a centimeter from a devastating, fight-changing blow, only to fail miserably and pay a stiff price. Witness Phillip N’Dou, throw six, eight, 10 punches in vain, Mayweather watching each subtle change in body position and reacting accordingly, there to be hit but not.
These moments, over 49 fights and two decades, are nearly endless. Over and over again, we’ve seen him take the best fighters in the world, from the swaggering puncher Diego Corrales to the quietly confident Juan Manuel Marquez, and make them look human. Hall of Famers, men like Arturo Gatti, appear helpless before his superior, well, everything.
Even then, Mayweather is rarely satisfied. The great ones never are.
“I don’t even watch the fights because it’s hard for me to watch,” he told reporters on a conference call last week. “It could be any of my top fights that people say that they love the most, but I say I could’ve been better. I could have done that better because I’m critical of myself and I feel like there’s never been enough. When I go out there and compete, I could’ve done something better, I could’ve been better. So, it’s good to not even watch it.”
Somehow, because we never know what we’ve got until it’s gone, this routine excellence has become predictable and even a little dull.
Boxing is an ugly business. Calling it the sweet science seems a particularly cruel joke. Most fighters leave the ring without even the pretense of hope for a bright future. Those few who manage to walk away with pockets bulging don’t tend to hold on to it for long.
No one expects a happy ending.
Inside the ring, too, boxing is a brutal enterprise. It’s mostly an endless grind of punching the air, punching a bag and, finally, punching another man. Most fights, too, are a repetitive slog, forward and backward shuffling occasionally interrupted by a punch or two. The best-case scenario, for the spectator at least, is two men foolishly risking their long-term health to prove a point to the other fighter or, more likely, to themselves.
Beauty, true beauty, is rare. Against this stark, grim landscape, it’s almost off-putting and unwelcome. And few have been more beautiful in the ring than Mayweather. His is an artistry unmatched in this era, an ability to judge distance, time and geometry and then make the right decision in the amount of time it takes most people to even register a punch has been thrown.
“I don’t think that I’m the same Floyd Mayweather that I was 10 years ago,” he says. “I’m not even the same Floyd Mayweather that I was five or two years ago. But I still said that I still have a high IQ in that ring. And I said experience-wise, it leans towards me, just period.
“Most times when I go out there and compete against any fighter, experience will always lean towards me because I’ve been in the ring and been at such a high level for so long.”
Mayweather is often accused of being a defensive fighter, boxing’s original sin. Sure, we give lip service to the idea that the point of the sport is to “hit without being hit.” But no one truly believes it.
In his first reign as champion, Muhammad Ali was fast as a hiccup, capable of shutting down opponents with disturbing ease, talking to them the whole time.
No one loved him for it.
Only after time revealed him to be human, after sacrificing his body in endless battles of attrition, did the public truly come to admire him.
Mayweather never made that concession to boxing fans. He never had to. Hiding in his defensive shell, left arm carefully covering his belly, right hand protecting his chin from a left hook, shoulder and preternatural reflexes there to guard against anything else that might come his way, Mayweather fights only when he wants to. He’ll poke his head out to throw a speedy right hand, then retreat back inside to do it again and again.
Truly gifted defensive fighters rarely sit the throne in the sport of boxing. Sure, they are appreciated by hardcore fans, the kind who make lists dating back a century, then argue about them on the internet. But their bouts take place either on the undercard of true stars or in front of a sprinkling of fans on cable television when they venture out on their own.
That was true of Mayweather, too. It wasn’t, however, a fate he was willing to accept. He knew more was possible, that crossover attempts with the hip-hop community were poorly executed and conceived. He knew he could be the biggest star in the sport if just given the chance.
“I always believed in my abilities and knew I was going to be able to have substantial financial success in the sport,” Mayweather says. “I just felt that in order to do that I had to take matters into my own hands. The whole time, and in the early stage of my career, I started and stayed paying attention to what they were doing and how they were doing it. I knew with the right people around me, like Al Haymon as an adviser, I would be able to do it myself.”
Almost no one else believed in him. HBO offered a deal he called a “slave contract.” He feuded with promoters, partners and even his own family. Something better, he knew, was out there for him. He was intent on finding it, even if he had to make the journey by himself.
In 2006, Mayweather bought Arum out and went it alone.
“He bet on himself early,” Espinoza says. “There aren’t many guys, at that stage of his career, who would write a check to a promoter for $750,000. With nothing waiting on the other side. He essentially bought his freedom, with the confidence that there were not just greener pastures waiting for him, but enough opportunities to recoup that $750,000 many, many times over.”
It wasn’t, however, his work in the ring that made Mayweather boxing’s top attraction overnight. He was distinctly the B-side in both the Oscar De La Hoya fight and his next bout with English sensation Ricky Hatton. It was his willingness to embrace change and reinvent boxing promotion for a new generation that earned him a seat at the table as seven-figure paydays turned to eight and then nine-figure events.
“What Floyd and his partner Al Haymon recognized early on, was that there was a tremendous opportunity if they could set up a business model that did not rely on a promoter as a sort of middleman,” Espinoza says. “So, rather than the typical boxing model, which has the promoter at the center, taking in all the revenue, paying the fighters and making a hefty profit for himself, Floyd’s business model put himself at the center. He collects all the revenues and hires a promoter, paying him a portion of the proceeds. But he remains the master of his domain.
“Floyd doesn‘t have to negotiate with anybody what share of the proceeds he’s getting. He knows that, whatever is left after expenses and after the opponent is paid, is all his. There’s no split with a promoter. That put him ahead of the game and allowed him to control his own destiny and his revenue streams.”
Mayweather wasn’t just next in a long line of stars. He was the first of his kind, building on the framework De Le Hoya had created when he went into business for himself at the tail end of his career and formed Golden Boy Promotions. Mayweather took that template even further, becoming more than a fighter—he was a budding mogul, both salesman and product, an industry unto himself.
The first time Floyd Mayweather spoke into the camera on HBO’s 24/7, the message was simple and stark.
“Look me in the eyes, Oscar. Look me in my eye. I’m going to kick your ass.”
Ten years later, it seems almost trite—the flashy bravado, the money thrown at the camera, the fast cars and lavish lifestyle paraded out for a generation of budding retail addicts looking for a fleeting thrill.
At the time, no one had seen anything like it. Mayweather took fans behind the scenes into his life, both the bright and shiny exhibitions of excess and the dark corners where family business was laid bare and insecurities came scuttling to the surface and into the slightest sliver of light.
“I was sitting around one day and it came to me that why not show the fans the whole picture of my life, in and outside the boxing ring,” Mayweather says. “It brought the fans closer to boxing’s own version of reality television and I was the star. Why not give them something different, something they could feel they were part of? That is what we did back then and still doing it with Showtime All Access now.”
It was magical television.
“Success has many fathers,” Espinoza says. “When the book is written on Floyd’s career, I’m sure many will claim part of the credit. But, ultimately, Floyd created Floyd and Floyd built Floyd through his connection with the audience. He was willing to embrace the villain character, the “Money” character. Which isn’t necessarily a character—it’s a version of himself. He was the perfect personality to come along with the rise of social media. And he took advantage of it like no other.
“The blueprint was created by Floyd. His intuitive sense of the market and the audience is uncanny. He doesn‘t talk in terms of things like brands, branding and being authentic. He doesn‘t throw around buzzwords. But if you look at what he’s done in establishing this persona, he’s a genius. It comes naturally and intuitively without anyone having taught him about handling the media and marketing. Those are just things he understands intuitively.”
Strangely, the more Mayweather revealed, the more opaque he seemed. He allowed a glimpse—but the real man also seemed just beyond reach, shadowed no matter how bright the lights. Mayweather has a pretty smile and an easy laugh. His eyes, too often, tell another story, though, one that reflects his hard-knock early life. Floyd may flash a smile, but danger lurks there just beneath the surface.
All of this keeps it interesting, text and subtext colliding, hours of reality television creating a fascinating portrait of a man. It’s why, against all odds, he’s become the biggest attraction in all of athletics.
Where does all this leave us? Likely right back where we started.
Critics, like Deadspin’s Charles Farrell, will never be satisfied, yearning for a different time and place when boxing was a different animal and it didn‘t take more than 20 years to amass 50 fights:
“Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is an unembellished fighter who, these days, knocks no one out. His unprecedented market value comes more from his mouth than from his fists; his slogan of “the best ever” can gain currency only with an audience that didn’t come up seeing legitimately great fighters, and doesn’t quite have the critical thinking needed to assess greatness. Floyd has hammered home his point about being undefeated so relentlessly that boxing fans have bought it. Being undefeated for nearly 19 years must make him the greatest fighter ever. Or at least one of the top two or three.”
True believers will go right on believing, holding firm to the notion that even a victory against a fighter without a single professional bout is one for the ages. There is no bridging this gap.
On Sunday morning, the Mayweather era will be over, but the conversation will never be finished. That, more than anything else, is a sign Mayweather was one for the ages—when discussing the greats, you have to reckon with his legacy. He matters. And that is enough.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
Former boxing champion Paulie Malignaggi (36-8), now an announcer for Showtime, knew something was up the minute he walked into the UFC’s new performance institute to square off for a second time with the promotion’s lightweight champion.
The first tim…
Former boxing champion Paulie Malignaggi (36-8), now an announcer for Showtime, knew something was up the minute he walked into the UFC’s new performance institute to square off for a second time with the promotion’s lightweight champion.
The first time he’d sparred with Conor McGregor, who is preparing for a bout with boxing’s greatest contemporary fighter Floyd Mayweather, things were quite a bit different. That session was about putting in work, a private, gritty affair where the few men in the gym had to leave their cell phones in a box to ensure no unauthorized video or pictures leaked out.
“I wasn’t really in the best of shape,” Malignaggi, who retired in March admits. “I was in decent shape but not fighting shape. I told myself ‘I’m not going to be the only sparring partner there so I don’t have to be in great shape.’
“We did eight rounds the first day and I just wanted to make him work. If I am there for him to throw punches at and I’m in position to shoot punches back, then I’ve done my job. Once I reached a certain level of sharpness I thought I could really be a big benefit to his camp. I was excited to fly out a second time and was ready for a tough session.”
This time, a week later, dignitaries abounded. Surrounding the ring were the likes of UFC President Dana White, former owner Lorenzo Fertitta and McGregor’s agent Audie Attar. This sparring session, Malignaggi feared, wasn’t about preparing a fight. This was about proving a point and proving it at Paulie’s expense.
“I realized it was more of a personal agenda,” he says. “There was a dark intention to what Conor was doing.”
In a normal sparring session, fresh training partners rotate in and out so the fighter preparing for the bout is always testing himself against a hungry, rested competitor. It’s the fighter who is supposed to get tired and be pushed to the limits, not the sparring partner. So when McGregor’s team asked him to go all 12 rounds without a break, just like an actual fight, he knew their intent was to try to knock him out, not use him to get better.
But, unknown to Team McGregor, Malignaggi had done some sparring and training of his own in the days in between their sessions. He wasn’t happy with his performance the first time and wanted to be able to offer McGregor good work, not just a warm body. When he got the call this time, he’d vowed, he’d be ready.
Ultimately, that decision saved him from a fate worse than leaving camp and returning home. Instead of being able to boast he’d knocked Malignaggi out in training, the UFC champion could only post what the boxer calls misleading photographs from the session, a fight he says he got the best of.
“The second time we sparred, he had a very tough day with me,” he says. “But even though he was losing, there were times when things had gone bad for him, that he’d say ‘another one for me. 7 to nuthin—me.’ I’d comment back ‘they didn’t teach you how to count where you went to school?’ He wouldn’t be feeling the way he was talking if he’d been going back to his corner and being reprimanded and corrected for his mistakes.”
Worse for McGregor, Malignaggi contends, is that his mistakes are rarely mentioned or corrected, making his progress incremental instead of spectacular.
“He’s such a big deal and a lot of times these big deal fighters end up with cheerleaders in their corner instead of trainers who aren’t scared to tell them when things are going wrong. That’s a bigger problem than the tactical stuff,” Malignaggi says. “Conor has his own style. He knows what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. It’s just a matter of sharpening it up and making it work and linking it with some boxing stuff.
“Clearly they have a plan but some things are going to work and some things aren’t going to work. I think it’s important not to let a fighter get a false sense of confidence. I got the sense that there’s a lot of yes men in his corner. Even when things were going wrong, he was being told he was doing good. At the end of the day, people need to be blunt with you when there are things that need to be corrected.”
After the session, Malignaggi says he felt good about the work he’d done. McGregor, he says, thanked him for coming out and he’d felt they’d buried the hatchet after some rough back and forth in the media. When a photo leaked that made it appear he’d been knocked down by a McGregor punch, Malignaggi was disappointed—but not shocked.
“It’s one thing to talk about what happened in sparring, Malignaggi says. “It’s another thing to lie about what happened in sparring. Neither of those things is actually supposed to happen. I should have already know it was coming. I gave Conor the benefit of the doubt. I thought he would have a little bit of code and some ethics. But the guy’s got no morals, he’s got no ethics. He’s a scumbag who thinks he’s above everything and everybody. None of the rules apply to him.
“I should have known better. Chris Van Heerden, when Conor sparred him, had egg on his face afterwards when Conor’s team posted some misleading stuff. Luckily for him, he had video of the whole thing and people saw what really happened.”
Ultimately, Malignaggi decided he couldn’t continue working with McGregor, whose taunts continue unabated. But he walks away more excited than ever for the bout between the two champions.
“I’m sure Floyd has seen everything. We know that. But Conor has some things on his side,” Malignaggi says. “He’s young. He’s got a little bit of power. He has the ability to pressure and counter from his mixed martial arts fights. He’s just got to find a way to blend that into something that works in boxing.
“I dont’ think he’s a bad boxer and Floyd Mayweather was a great boxer—but that was the past. Mayweather is a guy who is aging. He’s 40 years old. He hasn’t had a fight in two years. It’s a matter of Conor finding the right moment in the fight. If you’re able to capture a certain moment, maybe you can change the momentum or even end the fight.”
Malignaggi, though disappointed with how things turned out, remains confident his experience inside the MMA fighter’s camp will help him when the time comes to call the fight on August 26.
“People are talking about me and Conor, because of all the beef that is going on, but we can visit that if the time ever comes,” Malignaggi says. “Right now I’m focused on Floyd and McGregor not me and McGregor. I think it’s a great fight and a great event more so than that.
“I’m really excited to share what I’ve learned on fight night. I’ll be able to give viewers some x’s and o’s about what I’ve observed in Conor’s camp. Some things I think will work, some things I think will not work. I think it will be an interesting broadcast.”
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two weeks before his fight with Daniel Cormier on July 29, a bout that will determine which man is the baddest human being on the planet, Jon Jones is eating grilled chicken with asparagus. He’s been eating clean for week…
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two weeks before his fight with Daniel Cormier on July 29, a bout that will determine which man is the baddest human being on the planet, Jon Jones is eating grilled chicken with asparagus. He’s been eating clean for weeks, he says, feeling better than ever and on his way to what he hopes will be the easiest weight cut he’s ever had in his nine-year career.
Perhaps that means nothing. No fighter, after all, is spinning tales of woe in the days before a fight, not at a time when their own mental health and carefully built confidence may be a house of cards close to teetering over. But with Jones, who walked away, preferring to spend 15 minutes playing with a five-year-old in the cage to chattering with an MMA reporter, it could mean more than what it appears to on the surface.
Beneath, where rage, insecurity and desire meet, it speaks volumes.
There was a time when Jones would enter training camp with a bit of a pudge, a belly at odds with the long legs and arms he used so effectively to dart out and sting those who attempted to disturb his web.
There was a time when he couldn’t always be counted on to show up for every training session, when he believed his sharp mind, uncanny instincts and physical tools would carry the day.
Lifting his shirt to show me his preposterously hard abs, it’s clear those days are resigned to the history books. The champion worried about hiding a life at odds with his public image, the man who wanted to be loved even as the jeers persisted, is no more, dumped in the garbage alongside his orange jumpsuit and bottle of bootleg erection pills.
“People can judge me for how they want to see me,” he told the media in a conference call last week. “It’s already out there. It’s all out there in the public, and that’s a freeing feeling to be looked at as a piece of s–t by so many people and to be able to be real with yourself and to take responsibility for the things that you’ve done wrong. I feel so free. It’s a great feeling to be who I am. It’s great to be me, alive, whether you like me or hate me.
“…I’m excited because at the end of the day when you get to a certain low, the only place you can go is up, and I’m excited to be 30 years old and to have a good team of people around me right now and to go up.”
It should go without saying that this isn’t good news for anyone considering facing him inside a steel cage. Jones was already the best fighter in the history of mixed martial arts, a feat he accomplished despite his many and varied attempts at self-destruction. A carefully regulated violence machine inside the cage, Jones lost all control the moment the bright lights dimmed.
He tested positive for metabolites of cocaine, and he was caught using “dick pills.” He ran from the scene of a crash when he should have faced the music, and he was involved in another with two young ladies who were not his fiancee in the back seat of his Bentley.
None of it mattered.
No amount of partying, no lack of proper training and no petty criminality could stop his rise to the top. Despite his reckless life outside the world of competition, inside it he built a resume and legacy unparalleled in UFC history. Six former UFC champions felt his wrath en route to a 13-fight winning streak, interrupted only by his own lack of self-control.
And while his bad-boy antics eventually cost him his championship title, big-money sponsors and fans of a law and order bent, it’s important to note they never cost him a victory inside the cage.
Jones didn’t lose his belt—he simply lost his direction.
“The last time something bad happened, it was two years ago. I think people fail to really realize that,” Jones said during a media conference call. “Over the last two years, I feel like I’ve really done the right things to get my life back in order. I’ve paid for the things I’ve done wrong.
“…I’ve been proud of myself for cleaning up my life. The perception is that my life is still a little out of control. If you knew me and if you lived in Albuquerque, and you saw all my relationships with people and the community and the way things are turning around for me, you would see things differently.”
While the battleship Jones was moored, into his wake swam Daniel Cormier, the anti-Jones in many ways. Short where Jones is tall and bulging where he is lean, Cormier is the kind of solid citizen who in a simpler time would have surely found himself on the cover of a Wheaties box. He’s the kind of fighter who smiles, says what he thinks you want to hear and always, always attempts to exude an aura of safety.
Cormier is not the type of man who tests positive for recreational drugs or travels to and fro with girls of the night. He’s the type of man who loses fist fights to the dude who does, as Jones proved in a one-sided bout back in 2015.
Cormier is, arguably, one of the greatest fighters to ever step inside the UFC Octagon. His Olympic pedigree, including a fourth-place finish in 2004, speaks volumes about his ability to impose his will on another man. Video evidence, including picking up former champions like Josh Barnett and Dan Henderson like they were recalcitrant children, all but roars.
In addition to his deadly high crotch and brutal double-leg slam, Cormier has built a respectable boxing game under the tutelage of Javier Mendez at the American Kickboxing Academy. His work in the clinch, especially his pounding right uppercuts from a single tie, resembles that of a particularly effective hockey goon.
Daniel Cormier is a bad man. And he’s a good one.
It’s almost a shame Jon Jones is going to destroy him.
As great as Cormier is, and he’s one of the 10 best fighters to ever enter the cage, Jones is that much better. He’s Chris Evert in the age of Martina Navratilova; Clyde Drexler reaching his prime just as Michael Jordan climbed beyond the limits of the possible; George Foreman swaggering into a ring Muhammad Ali was determined to own.
Cormier might be the best to ever do it—if Jones had never been born.
“To go to sleep and consider yourself the baddest motherf–ker that has lived throughout this era, you’ve got to beat the baddest motherf–ker,” Jones said. “He says, ‘Well, I didn’t have to beat you, you beat yourself.’ Every time he says that he validates what I’m saying. Yes, you just haven’t beat me, you know what I mean. So, am I impressed? You can beat as many people as you want, but until you beat the guy, you’re not the guy.”
Jones was a storm that washed over foes, long arms and spindly legs obliterating any sense of safety and comfort, taking what are normally benign positions in the cage and making them home to nothing but chaos and pain. There is no such thing as relaxation against Jones.
Worst of all, for Cormier and all to follow? That was the old Jones.
“He’s better than he was before the layoff,” Jones’ coach, Brandon Gibson, said. “I’d say he’s at an all-time best. I could see it going similar to the way he finished Shogun [Mauricio Rua]. Volume, accuracy, technique and creativity.”
At Jackson-Winkeljohn, where Jones trains with the most successful coaches in the sport’s history, the question isn’t if Jones is going to finish Cormier this time—it’s how and when. In their minds, Cormier has remained stagnant, at 38 a finished product who has changed little about his game in the two years Jones has been mostly out of circulation.
Meanwhile, Jones has added a variety of tools that Cormier has never seen. That’s a significant edge for Jones, who already won the first bout in dominant fashion.
“I’ve shown Daniel nothing,” Jones told the press. “He has no clue of the progression. He has no clue what I’ve changed in my boxing. He doesn’t know what I’ve changed in my clinching. He doesn’t know what I’ve changed in my jiu-jitsu. He has nothing.
“I’ve watched him on the ground against Anderson Silva. We know what his top game looks like. I watched him take Anthony Johnson’s back. We know what his back control looks like. We know what he’s capable of. We have a huge blueprint on him, where he really has no clue what I’ve done differently over the last two years.”
It’s a fact that has created an interesting dichotomy going into the bout. On paper, these are the two best fighters the UFC has ever known—but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a one-sided blowout. Jones has become the best fighter in the world despite himself. Free to fly, the results may exceed even his own wildest expectations.
Sorry, Daniel.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two weeks before his fight with Daniel Cormier on July 29, a bout that will determine which man is the baddest human being on the planet, Jon Jones is eating grilled chicken with asparagus. He’s been eating clean for week…
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two weeks before his fight with Daniel Cormier on July 29, a bout that will determine which man is the baddest human being on the planet, Jon Jones is eating grilled chicken with asparagus. He’s been eating clean for weeks, he says, feeling better than ever and on his way to what he hopes will be the easiest weight cut he’s ever had in his nine-year career.
Perhaps that means nothing. No fighter, after all, is spinning tales of woe in the days before a fight, not at a time when their own mental health and carefully built confidence may be a house of cards close to teetering over. But with Jones, who walked away, preferring to spend 15 minutes playing with a five-year-old in the cage to chattering with an MMA reporter, it could mean more than what it appears to on the surface.
Beneath, where rage, insecurity and desire meet, it speaks volumes.
There was a time when Jones would enter training camp with a bit of a pudge, a belly at odds with the long legs and arms he used so effectively to dart out and sting those who attempted to disturb his web.
There was a time when he couldn’t always be counted on to show up for every training session, when he believed his sharp mind, uncanny instincts and physical tools would carry the day.
Lifting his shirt to show me his preposterously hard abs, it’s clear those days are resigned to the history books. The champion worried about hiding a life at odds with his public image, the man who wanted to be loved even as the jeers persisted, is no more, dumped in the garbage alongside his orange jumpsuit and bottle of bootleg erection pills.
“People can judge me for how they want to see me,” he told the media in a conference call last week. “It’s already out there. It’s all out there in the public, and that’s a freeing feeling to be looked at as a piece of s–t by so many people and to be able to be real with yourself and to take responsibility for the things that you’ve done wrong. I feel so free. It’s a great feeling to be who I am. It’s great to be me, alive, whether you like me or hate me.
“…I’m excited because at the end of the day when you get to a certain low, the only place you can go is up, and I’m excited to be 30 years old and to have a good team of people around me right now and to go up.”
It should go without saying that this isn’t good news for anyone considering facing him inside a steel cage. Jones was already the best fighter in the history of mixed martial arts, a feat he accomplished despite his many and varied attempts at self-destruction. A carefully regulated violence machine inside the cage, Jones lost all control the moment the bright lights dimmed.
He tested positive for metabolites of cocaine, and he was caught using “dick pills.” He ran from the scene of a crash when he should have faced the music, and he was involved in another with two young ladies who were not his fiancee in the back seat of his Bentley.
None of it mattered.
No amount of partying, no lack of proper training and no petty criminality could stop his rise to the top. Despite his reckless life outside the world of competition, inside it he built a resume and legacy unparalleled in UFC history. Six former UFC champions felt his wrath en route to a 13-fight winning streak, interrupted only by his own lack of self-control.
And while his bad-boy antics eventually cost him his championship title, big-money sponsors and fans of a law and order bent, it’s important to note they never cost him a victory inside the cage.
Jones didn’t lose his belt—he simply lost his direction.
“The last time something bad happened, it was two years ago. I think people fail to really realize that,” Jones said during a media conference call. “Over the last two years, I feel like I’ve really done the right things to get my life back in order. I’ve paid for the things I’ve done wrong.
“…I’ve been proud of myself for cleaning up my life. The perception is that my life is still a little out of control. If you knew me and if you lived in Albuquerque, and you saw all my relationships with people and the community and the way things are turning around for me, you would see things differently.”
While the battleship Jones was moored, into his wake swam Daniel Cormier, the anti-Jones in many ways. Short where Jones is tall and bulging where he is lean, Cormier is the kind of solid citizen who in a simpler time would have surely found himself on the cover of a Wheaties box. He’s the kind of fighter who smiles, says what he thinks you want to hear and always, always attempts to exude an aura of safety.
Cormier is not the type of man who tests positive for recreational drugs or travels to and fro with girls of the night. He’s the type of man who loses fist fights to the dude who does, as Jones proved in a one-sided bout back in 2015.
Cormier is, arguably, one of the greatest fighters to ever step inside the UFC Octagon. His Olympic pedigree, including a fourth-place finish in 2004, speaks volumes about his ability to impose his will on another man. Video evidence, including picking up former champions like Josh Barnett and Dan Henderson like they were recalcitrant children, all but roars.
In addition to his deadly high crotch and brutal double-leg slam, Cormier has built a respectable boxing game under the tutelage of Javier Mendez at the American Kickboxing Academy. His work in the clinch, especially his pounding right uppercuts from a single tie, resembles that of a particularly effective hockey goon.
Daniel Cormier is a bad man. And he’s a good one.
It’s almost a shame Jon Jones is going to destroy him.
As great as Cormier is, and he’s one of the 10 best fighters to ever enter the cage, Jones is that much better. He’s Chris Evert in the age of Martina Navratilova; Clyde Drexler reaching his prime just as Michael Jordan climbed beyond the limits of the possible; George Foreman swaggering into a ring Muhammad Ali was determined to own.
Cormier might be the best to ever do it—if Jones had never been born.
“To go to sleep and consider yourself the baddest motherf–ker that has lived throughout this era, you’ve got to beat the baddest motherf–ker,” Jones said. “He says, ‘Well, I didn’t have to beat you, you beat yourself.’ Every time he says that he validates what I’m saying. Yes, you just haven’t beat me, you know what I mean. So, am I impressed? You can beat as many people as you want, but until you beat the guy, you’re not the guy.”
Jones was a storm that washed over foes, long arms and spindly legs obliterating any sense of safety and comfort, taking what are normally benign positions in the cage and making them home to nothing but chaos and pain. There is no such thing as relaxation against Jones.
Worst of all, for Cormier and all to follow? That was the old Jones.
“He’s better than he was before the layoff,” Jones’ coach, Brandon Gibson, said. “I’d say he’s at an all-time best. I could see it going similar to the way he finished Shogun [Mauricio Rua]. Volume, accuracy, technique and creativity.”
At Jackson-Winkeljohn, where Jones trains with the most successful coaches in the sport’s history, the question isn’t if Jones is going to finish Cormier this time—it’s how and when. In their minds, Cormier has remained stagnant, at 38 a finished product who has changed little about his game in the two years Jones has been mostly out of circulation.
Meanwhile, Jones has added a variety of tools that Cormier has never seen. That’s a significant edge for Jones, who already won the first bout in dominant fashion.
“I’ve shown Daniel nothing,” Jones told the press. “He has no clue of the progression. He has no clue what I’ve changed in my boxing. He doesn’t know what I’ve changed in my clinching. He doesn’t know what I’ve changed in my jiu-jitsu. He has nothing.
“I’ve watched him on the ground against Anderson Silva. We know what his top game looks like. I watched him take Anthony Johnson’s back. We know what his back control looks like. We know what he’s capable of. We have a huge blueprint on him, where he really has no clue what I’ve done differently over the last two years.”
It’s a fact that has created an interesting dichotomy going into the bout. On paper, these are the two best fighters the UFC has ever known—but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a one-sided blowout. Jones has become the best fighter in the world despite himself. Free to fly, the results may exceed even his own wildest expectations.
Sorry, Daniel.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
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