To many critics, Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s fight with Conor McGregor was a shameless money grab. When the two got into the ring Saturday night in Las Vegas, it turned into much more than that.
Mayweather ultimately picked up a 10th-round TKO. His precision and boxing experience were simply too much for The Notorious to overcome. But it didn’t come without a fight. McGregor brought the pressure like he said he would throughout the hype.
In all, the Irishman landed 111 punches as he proved he could hold his own against the best boxer of a generation.
In the end, both fighters celebrated becoming even more wealthy than they were when the night started:
“We rich” indeed.
The official numbers will take a while to come out. Pay-per-view sales take time to be calculated, and how the pay-per-view dollars will be distributed hasn’t been made public. However, The Telegraph reports that the Nevada Athletic Commission put the minimum payouts at $100 million for Mayweather and $30 million for McGregor.
Arash Markazi of ESPN.com reports that buys are expected to at least equal if not surpass the numbers from Mayweather’s bout with Manny Pacquiao.
That puts the payday for both fighters in an even more exorbitant range. The Mayweather-Pacquiao bout did 4.4 million buys, and Mayweather came away with somewhere between $220 million and $230 million, per Dan Rafael and Darren Rovell of ESPN.com.
Rovell added some context as to just how bonkers the money involved in this fight was:
At least this time around it felt as though Mayweather and McGregor earned the wild amounts of cash they’ll come away with. While the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was widely considered a dud, this one had its moments.
Statistically, McGregor had a much better day than Mayweather’s longtime rival:
The Notorious came out in the first few rounds of the fight doing just as he promised throughout the buildup to the fight: Bring the fight to Mayweather. McGregor pressured the boxing legend from the opening bell and even landed some clean shots.
Showtime Boxing noted right away that he didn’t look out of place in the boxing ring:
The early success came at a price, though. McGregor set a pace that was simply unsustainable. While it helped him make a go of the fight, Mayweather began to open up as the fight continued, and that spelled trouble for the MMA star.
After four rounds, McGregor‘s output started to fade, and Mayweather’s consistently accurate punching began to take its toll. The Notorious’ fatigue was one of the biggest storylines as the fight progressed, and it ended up costing him.
The fight was called by referee Robert Byrd in the 10th round after McGregor was stumbling around from unanswered punches and exhaustion. The Notorious wasn’t happy with the stoppage as he chalked it up to simply being tired, not hurt.
“I thought it was a little early on the stoppage,” McGregor said after the fight, per Mike Bohn of MMAjunkie. “I get a little wobbly when I’m tired. But get me in the corner and I’ll recover and I’ll come back. There’s a lot on the line here—he should have let me keep going until I hit the floor. I was just a little fatigued. He was a lot more composed, especially in the later parts of the fight.”
In the end, the stoppage was probably a foregone conclusion. McGregor was quickly fading and didn’t look any better than he did in the ninth round when Money started teeing off.
What was important, though, was the McGregor proved he could make it in the sport of boxing. A loss to Mayweather is on plenty of great boxers’ records, and now opportunities abound for him in both sports.
According to Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting, McGregor replied “of course” when asked if he would be returning to the Octagon. That doesn’t mean we are done seeing him lace up boxing gloves, though.
“I love the sport of boxing,” McGregor said, per Dave Doyle of MMA Fighting. “Boxing has been dear to my heart my whole, entire life. I will contend in boxing bouts going forward, and I will contend in mixed martial arts bouts going forward. I will rule both with an iron fist, and that’s where my mindset is.”
While Mayweather may be done collecting massive pay checks in combat sports, this is just the beginning of a new level of earning power for McGregor.
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