The wait for the biggest fight in combat sports history is almost over.
Conor McGregor, for the first time in his career, will enter the boxing ring as a professional against Floyd Mayweather Jr., one of the greatest boxers the sport has ever known, Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Call it a mismatch, a money grab, a spectacle—it doesn’t matter. This fight has grabbed the attention and imagination of two worlds: boxing and mixed martial arts. Both fighters are loud and arrogant, but we just can’t get enough of the two of them.
History will be made on Saturday in every way, and not just in terms of pay-per-view sales. There are two questions surrounding this fight that will be answered sooner rather than later. One, how seriously is Mayweather taking his training and this fight? And two, can McGregor do the impossible?
The Irishman has a puncher’s chance, but before then they’ll face off at the weigh-ins on Friday.
Weigh-in info
Where: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas
Time: 4:30 p.m. ET
Tickets: Complimentary tickets available at ticketmaster.com
Fight card schedule, odds (courtesy of OddsShark)
Floyd Mayweather (-400) vs. Conor McGregor (+300) Super welterweight
Badou Jack (-350) Nathan Cleverly (+285), light heavyweight
Gervonta Davis (-3000) Francisco Fonseca (+1700), junior lightweight
Andrew Tabiti (-270) vs. Steve Cunningham (+230), cruiserweight
Prediction
There’s no way McGregor comes out as the loser in this fight, regardless of whether he can actually beat Mayweather in a boxing match. The amount of money he will make from this fight will ensure financial security for the rest of his life, win or lose. But money isn’t what motivates McGregor anymore.
It’s about proving everyone wrong.
McGregor has already said that Mayweather’s head will bounce off the canvas within four rounds, and that was before the Nevada State Athletic Commission granted the joint request to fight in eight-ounce gloves instead of 10-ounce ones.
With the new glove size, McGregor finds it hard to imagine that Mayweather will even survive two rounds.
As crazy as that may sound, McGregor does have a point in the sense that if he connects a clean left hand against Mayweather, he could hit the canvas like a rock. But you can say that about any fighter Mayweather has faced in his career. For example, isn’t that what everyone said when he fought Canelo Alvarez a few years ago?
Mayweather is 40, coming out of a two-year retirement and could use the money. McGregor won’t box the way Mayweather has grown accustomed to over the years against his opponents.
Mayweather has said he will knock McGregor out and told ESPN‘s Stephen A. Smith that he “has to go to him,” but when has he ever pressed? Ireland’s MMA godfather and head coach for Team McGregor, John Kavanagh, told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour Monday that if Mayweather really does charge forward, he’ll be knocked out flat in a minute.
However, he believes Mayweather won’t charge forward and will instead box defensively, resulting in a sixth-round KO victory for McGregor.
Mayweather will not be knocked out in a minute, but he should be in for a war on Saturday, one which will end with McGregor getting his hand raised after knocking out Mayweather in the fifth round via a left hook.
The history books will be rewritten, and McGregor will become the true face of the fight game.
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