Briefly, it looked like Conor McGregor had enough to take down Floyd Mayweather Jr. Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Briefly.
By design or not, McGregor came out firing on all cylinders and won a few rounds. A combination of Mayweather feeling him out and letting him gas himself out seemed likely, which wound up true as referee Robert Byrd stopped the fight early.
The CompuBox numbers tell the whole story, provided by ESPN.com’s Arash Markazi:
Even from a stat sheet alone, it isn’t hard to see why Mayweather earned the 10th-round TKO. McGregor outpointed him over the first five rounds, then lost the ensuing rounds in sheer punch totals by more than double.
As is the case with any Mayweather fight, accuracy played the biggest role in McGregor needing a referee to step in and stop the onslaught: Money landed 58 percent of his 152 power punches, McGregor 25 percent of his 332.
Predictable finish? Sure. But the fight did its job by entertaining fans, especially right after the opening bell, which showed more life than the hyped Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight ever did.
And it made both guys droves of money. Scrooge McDuck’s pool level of cash.
According to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com, Money secured a guaranteed figure of $100 million that would likely hit north of $200 million. McGregor only got $30 million as a minimum but would likely end up flirting with the $100 million mark.
It was easy to scoff at similar numbers after the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. For all the hype there, Mayweather toyed with another legend on the way to an easy win. Pre-fight expectations had presumed the fight would have more action (even after 50, folks still expect it with Money for some reason) and a thrilling finish.
Low expectations providing a better reaction here or not, even someone like UFC President Dana White seemed happy with the final result, per Sports Illustrated:
“I was happy with the stoppage,” White said. “Conor was tired, and I didn’t want to see two more rounds of that. This isn’t what he does. He came in; he fought Mayweather at his game.”
McGregor, as expected, didn’t necessarily agree with the early stoppage, yet tipped the hat to Mayweather’s prowess. Markazi provided the quotes:
The takeaways here are simple. Mayweather, in an odd sort of way, was the perfect straight-up boxing opponent for McGregor because of his passive style. A more aggressive boxer might have ended the fight earlier.
McGregor could easily keep working on his skill here and launch a solid career. But as White would probably attest, it is better for him to get back into the Octagon and continue his run there. And Mayweather? He now has his 50-0 record and can fully fade away if he wants, though the allure of a rematch won’t go away.
Feel free to call Saturday the perfect storm. Mayweather and McGregor sat atop their respective sports, are experts in pre-fight trash talk, have rabid fanbases and provided a safe event exceeding expectations while entertaining on the way to a predictable finish.
If viewers come away happy from the investment, even if the scorecard could’ve been predicted accurately beforehand, the event goes down as a success.
Everybody, McGregor included, scores a win in the legacy department for delivering on what seemed like unrealistic levels of hype.
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