Despite some pay-per-view issues, Saturday night’s superfight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor was more entertaining than most boxing pundits and critics thought it was going to be.
Mayweather came away with the victory to move past Rocky Marciano with a 50-0 record after stopping McGregor in the 10th round via TKO, but the fight wasn’t as one-sided as you may think. Without a doubt, McGregor won the first three rounds, regardless of what the judges’ scorecards read.
According to MMAjunkie, the fight was scored 87-83, 89-82, 89-81—amazingly—for Mayweather through the first nine rounds before referee Robert Byrd stepped in and stopped the fight.
McGregor appeared sharp in the opening rounds of the bout and looked like he belonged in the boxing ring, even against someone as great as Mayweather. But as McGregor has shown in a couple fights against Nate Diaz in the UFC, he gassed out in the later rounds, allowing Mayweather to push forward and look for the finish.
Despite the loss, no one can take anything away from McGregor: He had the courage to enter into a new sport and go up against, arguably, the best fighter of our generation. The Irishman went toe-to-toe with his American opponent for 10 rounds and landed a few good shots.
In fact, McGregor landed more punches against Mayweather in 10 rounds than Manny Pacquiao did against Mayweather in 12 rounds.
Mike Chiappetta of MMAFighting.com provided a breakdown of McGregor’s performance against Mayweather compared to Pacquiao:
And here’s a complete breakdown of both fighter’s punch stats from Saturday night, per Arash Markazi of ESPN:
As for what’s next for each fighter, it’s simple.
Mayweather is riding off into the sunset with a perfect, 50-0 record and more money than he can count in his bank account. If he’s smart with his money, he’ll never have to work another day in his life.
The same can be said for McGregor, who is expected to make over nine figures from Saturday’s fight, but there is a lot of discussion surrounding him returning to the Octagon to fight Nate Diaz in a trilogy match, as McGregor’s manager Audie Attar told MMA Junkie (h/t MMA Mania’s Ryan Harkness).
Attar said he could defend his 155-pound title against Tony Ferguson or Kevin Lee or have a rematch against Max Holloway for the featherweight title, while McGregor has also teased a match with Khabib Nurmagomedov.
And even if McGregor chooses not to fight again, he’s set for life. This weekend was historic in many ways, but most of all, the world witnessed two of the best fighters in their respective sports go head-to-head in a boxing match.
Who could’ve asked for more?
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