Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor have spent the entire summer taking over social media feeds. Soon, the two will finally take over pay-per-view.
All the talk, all the sparring footage, all the custom suits will be put aside, and all that will be left of this bizarre rivalry will be a fistfight in the boxing ring Saturday.
Mayweather is looking to extend his record to a perfect 50-0, while McGregor is looking to do something that no fighter in combat sports has done: to become a megastar in both MMA and boxing. When the final bell rings, both will make a ton of money and a lot of barroom bets and debates will have been ended.
Whether motivated by hate for either of the combatants or love for either of the sports at play here, it figures to be one of the most watched fights in history.
Here’s a look at the complete schedule for the pay-per-view event along with some predictions and analysis for the main event.
Main Card (9 p.m. ET)
- Floyd Mayweather Jr. (USA, 49-0) vs. Conor McGregor (IRE, debut), light middleweight
- Gervonta Davis (USA, 18-0) vs. Francisco Fonseca (CRC, 19-0-1), IBF super featherweight title
- Nathan Cleverly (GBR, 30-3) vs. Badou Jack (SWE, 21-1-2), WBA (regular) light heavyweight title
- Andrew Tabiti (USA, 14-0) vs. Steve Cunningham (USA, 29-8-1), USBA cruiserweight title
Preliminary Card
- Juan Heraldez (USA, 12-0) vs. Jose Miguel Borrego (MEX, 13-0), welterweight
- Kevin Newman (USA, 7-0-1) vs. Antonio Hernandez (USA, 9-1-0), super middleweight
- Savannah Marshall (USA, debut) vs. Amy Coleman (USA, debut), women’s super middleweight.
Fight Prediction
Predicting exactly how this fight will play out is an inexact science. Although there’s plenty of footage to break down Mayweather’s style and tendencies, this is McGregor‘s first foray into the sweet science.
That simple fact should tell the average fight fan about how this bout is likely to go.
From the outset, it should be interesting to see just how far McGregor will go to bend the rules. The further McGregor can drag the fight away from being a traditional boxing match, the more the odds shift in his favor.
The bending of the rules is something that the Money Man is expecting.
“I see a lot of rabbit punches behind the head, grappling, wrestling, illegal shots,” Mayweather said about McGregor‘s sparring sessions, per Adam Silverstein of CBSSports.com. “But the ref will be fair on both sides; I want him to be even. I want us to have a good solid fight.”
Mayweather pointing out the tactics in the lead-up to this fight is a strategic move. With the superstar already pointing it out, it’s bound to be a narrative that the referee is well aware of on fight night.
While there are plenty of predictions for this fight, the most accurate one might come from Peter Burns of ESPN.com:
While the trash talk and build up have been fun (at times, before it became a little tedious). The realities of this matchup aren’t so much.
Mayweather may talk about becoming too old. He may even say that he’s concerned with making this fight exciting. You can’t teach old boxers new tricks.
Mayweather’s game is one of precision, patience and persistence. That isn’t to say he isn’t a master of his craft. He is. But to watch him fight is to watch someone play a Madden on easy difficulty, then simply run the clock to win 7-0.
The 40-year-old’s MO has always been to protect the “0” in his record, and it comes out in the way he fights. He’s a masterful defensive fighter with an average offense. He always looks to make his opponent miss but only makes them pay for it enough to get the win on the judges’ cards.
That’s why he hasn’t knocked anyone out since 2011, when he turned Victor Ortiz’s lights out in a controversial finish in which Ortiz wasn’t defending himself.
That’s why he won’t knock out McGregor either. Instead, he’ll fight a risk-averse fight in which the brash Irishman is mostly swinging at air and the ref is on an endless loop of breaking clinches while Mayweather does just enough damage to keep collecting 10’s on the scorecard.
Mayweather takes yet another unanimous decision and cashes in one last time.
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