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UFC on Fox 25: Weidman Sticks Mostly to What Works in Crucial Win over Gastelum

The blueprint is still good for Chris Weidman.
Despite a three-fight skid that had the former middleweight champion looking down-and-out, Weidman proved his foundational skill set remains one of the best in MMA in a third-round submission victory over …

The blueprint is still good for Chris Weidman.

Despite a three-fight skid that had the former middleweight champion looking down-and-out, Weidman proved his foundational skill set remains one of the best in MMA in a third-round submission victory over Kelvin Gastelum on Saturday.

The pair’s back-and-forth main event at UFC on Fox 25 was a treat for fans at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum during the Octagon’s first-ever trip to Long Island. It also provided Weidman, a New York native, the chance to get back in the win column on home soil.

“I know Long Island ain’t doubting me,” Weidman crowed to the live crowd after the win. “I know you’ve got my back. But to all these other dudes around the world: Keep doubting me. I dare you.”

On a night that treated the rest of the UFC’s New York contingent rather roughly, it appeared to lift the spirits of fans in the Empire State:

Feel-good moments have been few and far between for Weidman since losing his title to Luke Rockhold at UFC 194 in December 2015. The man who seemed poised for greatness after back-to-back wins over Anderson Silva in 2013 slipped into an uncharacteristic competitive funk, conceding ugly stoppage losses to Yoel Romero and Gegard Mousasi in his previous two contests.

Weidman also missed significant time due to neck surgery.

All that adversity conspired to make this bout a must win for him against the surging Gastelum. The younger fighter should’ve rightly come in on his own three-fight win streak, but had his win over Vitor Belfort in March made a no-contest after the 25-year-old Gastelum tested positive for marijuana.

Perhaps Weidman, 33, learned something during that recent losing streak, however. When he limits his mistakes and plays to his strengths, he remains among the best 185-pound fighters in the UFC.

Not to chalk too much up to pure bad luck, but it’s possible the stretch of defeats was never quite as bad as it looked on paper.

The title loss to Rockhold came after Weidman tried an uncharacteristically risky wheel kick that allowed Rockhold to put him on his back in the fourth round.

Eleven months later, he was acquitting himself well against Romero until the former Olympic wrestler blasted him with a highlight-reel flying knee to begin the third.

The loss to Mousasi happened after a protracted referee stoppage, where instant replay had to be used to determine if a series of knees Mousasi landed were illegal.

Nonetheless, it was likely no accident that Weidman kept close to his bread and butter in a fight he desperately needed to win this weekend.

He succeeded in turning the Gastelum bout into a takedown clinic, grounding his smaller opponent with his trademark single leg, an ankle pick, a sweep and a double leg over the first three rounds.

Weidman finished with seven takedowns, according to the official FightMetric statistics. He also officially out-landed Gastelum 36-26 in significant strikes and 75-28 in total strikes, though it often seemed Gastelum landed with more force.

Weidman threatened with a kimura attempt in the first before finally coaxing out a tap with an arm triangle in the third.

It was the fourth submission win of Weidman’s 17-fight career and his first since he got Tom Lawlor with a d’arce choke at UFC 139 in November 2011. It advanced his overall record to 14-3.

The victory will no doubt bump Weidman up from the No. 5 spot in the UFC’s official rankings. It won’t make him the immediate consensus No. 1 contender, but with the futures of champion Michael Bisping and interim champ Robert Whittaker still undecided, he’s suddenly back in a good spot.

Given a choice between the two, Weidman made his preferred opponent clear.

“To that British bum who is crying in his freaking house right now: I’m back, baby,” Weidman said, needling Bisping after the win. “I’m back. Stop hiding from the real men. Let’s go.”

The win came with its dicey moments, though.

After controlling the fight’s opening stages, Weidman got caught by a winging overhand left from Gastelum that dropped him to the canvas just before the end of the first round. He recovered and survived until the horn, but it recalled the pattern of Weidman’s recent losses—where he seems to be going along fine until suddenly he isn’t.

Critics—who have dogged Weidman since his wins over Silva at UFCs 162 and 168—will no doubt point to that exchange as evidence that Weidman remains vulnerable and that this resurgence may be short-lived.

They’ll also likely note that many believe Gastelum is a natural welterweight, despite the fact he’d won his last four appearances at 185 pounds.

The California native said he felt no pressure headed into this meeting and certainly fought like it throughout their nearly 14 minutes together.

While Gastelum couldn’t stop Weidman from taking him down, he never panicked and succeeded in quickly getting back to his feet more often than not.

If anything, Gastelum appeared to be playing a waiting game. He seemed to content to make Weidman work for takedowns and top control, perhaps biding his time until the later rounds, when he hoped his larger opponent might begin to fade.

Unfortunately, Gastelum didn’t make it to the championship rounds. The two began the third by firing off aggressive flurries of punches, and Weidman appeared to sting Gastelum before taking him to the mat against the fence.

After the fight hit the ground, Weidman worked to side mount and locked up the arm-triangle choke that forced the submission with a minute, 15 seconds left on the clock.

The loss may derail most of Gastelum’s momentum, but it could also give some added credibility to his desire to return to 170 pounds. After missing weight three times as a welterweight, he found success at 185 pounds but always expressed a desire to return to the lighter division.

For Weidman, fortunes have clearly not been brighter for a number of years.

The future of the middleweight title remains murky after a proposed bout between Bisping and Georges St-Pierre appeared to get pulled off the table in May. If the UFC rebooks that fight or if Bisping can’t quickly take on Whittaker in a unification bout, it’s not out of the question Weidman could fight for the interim title.

If that bout came to pass, it would be another meeting with a slick, powerful striker for Weidman—and another fight where imposing his grappling-based game plan and limiting his mistakes on the feet would be the wisest path to victory.

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The Question: Is Chris Weidman Done?

The career path of Chris Weidman looks like a rip-roaring stock that craters after an unexpected market crash. It’s straight up, then straight down, and that’s puzzling. This is a talented wrestler, striker and jiu-jitsu ace who dethroned the legendary Anderson Silva in 2013 and then defeated Lyoto Machida in July 2014 and Vitor Belfort in May 2015 in cementing his UFC championship reign.

The middleweight division seemed to be his world when he ran into Luke Rockhold in December 2015, only to fall via TKO, but it seemed like something he could rebound from. Instead, he was stopped again by Yoel Romero last November and then one more time by Gegard Mousasi in April.

In two years’ time, he went from exalted champion to catastrophic case study. At Saturday’s UFC on Fox 25, he’ll attempt to get back into the win column against the surging Kelvin Gastelum, who has yet to lose at middleweight, though he had his March win over Vitor Belfort overturned to a no-contest following a positive drug test for marijuana metabolites.

That adjudication aside, you can’t erase the momentum he has built over the past few fights, a factor that makes his booking with Weidman a bit surprising.

Traditionally, the UFC has attempted to pair off fighters with similar recent streaks. That’s not the case here, so we must ask, what gives?

Joining me to discuss is MMA Lead Writer Mike Chiappetta.

Chiappetta: Weidman is part of a fascinating phenomenon of fighters who seem to have it all one day and lose it all the next.

To be clear, three straight losses doesn’t mean it’s over for him. At 33 years old, he’s hardly ancient, and in all three of those losses, he won at least one round before falling, so it’s not like he’s being dominated from bell to bell.

Instead, it seems like either the accumulation of blows is getting to him, or he’s not able to take single shots as well as he used to.

Aside from the losses, the most alarming thing in looking at Weidman’s most recent fights is his reduced output. In the early part of his career, Weidman—buoyed by his strong ground-and-pound—was out-landing everyone. Even when he fought the tricky Machida, he landed 90 strikes to Machida’s 63, per FightMetric.

But since winning Round 1 of his fight with Rockhold, that’s never been the case. After Rockhold bludgeoned him, the final strike count was a whopping 161-62, per FightMetric. The website also had the slow-paced Romero out-landing Weidman 27-16, and the habitually slow-starting Mousasi out-landing him 55-18.

Those types of deficits are rarely going to be overcome against the kind of top-flight opposition that Weidman faces. So here’s some bad news for Weidman: Gastelum is an extremely active fighter, averaging 4.07 landed strikes per minute, according to FightMetric. That means Weidman is going to have to find a way to slow down Gastelum while finding his own offense.

In other words, if you smell trouble here, you’re probably right. Even though he’s fighting at home in Long Island, Weidman is an underdog on most sports books.

So what gives here, Jeremy? Does Weidman have the juice to come back, or is the UFC giving Gastelum the opportunity to leapfrog toward the front of the division on Weidman’s name?

Botter: It’s a little weird that we’re even having this conversation, Mike. Right? I mean, if you’d asked me this sort of question two years ago, I would’ve laughed in your face. Or at least laughed at you behind your back.

But that’s where we are now, discussing the rapid decline of a guy who once looked like the best fighter on the planet, or at least something approximating it. We’ve seen this type of decline in the past, most notably with Ronda Rousey, and it’s sort of jarring to witness. One day you’re on top of the world. The next day, you’re being used as a gatekeeper for the top of the division.

You aren’t supposed to be a gatekeeper at Weidman’s age. Even if you lose to a top divisional player, you’re expected to rebound and find your way back into the mix. But look at Johny Hendricks; depending on how you look at things, that dude either beat Georges St-Pierre or came closer than anyone had in years to doing so, and now he’s a guy who can’t make weight or catch a win over any sort of opponent.

I’m not saying that’s the future for Chris Weidman. But I am saying it looks like the UFC believes that’s his future, because why else would they pair him up against Kelvin Gastelum in the first place?

Chiappetta: I guess that depends on how you view the matchup. I understand how you’d reach that conclusion that UFC was using him to pump up Gastelum. As I noted previously, the UFC likes to pair off guys on similar streaks, and these two have been speeding in opposite directions.

However, let’s look at it from another point of view. Currently, Weidman is ranked fifth in the UFC rankings, while Gastelum is ranked eighth. From that perspective, the matchup looks more logical.

Also, if you think about who’s between Gastelum and Weidman, there’s only two guys: Anderson Silva and Derek Brunson.

The UFC was set to square off Gastelum with Silva until they received the results of Gastelum’s positive drug test.

Meanwhile, Brunson had already been scheduled for a match with Dan Kelly, which he went on to win by TKO last month. He wasn’t available.

So there were not a whole lot of options for Gastelum that would have made sense for him aside from Weidman.

I’m not on board with the idea that Weidman is being set up to fail. For one thing, he is fighting at home, and I think the UFC would be just as happy if he wins a fight at home and re-establishes himself as a force in the division as they would be if Gastelum emerges with the victory and stamps himself as a legit contender. Either result works.

And Gastelum? He’s still very young, only 25, so he can rebound from a loss here, while every consecutive loss sets Weidman further back from what he once was. In an era where the UFC has only a handful of active fighters with name value to casual fans, they can do worse than continue to promote “the guy who ended the G.O.A.T.”

But I do think you have an interesting larger point about this phenomenon of fighters going from indomitable to hapless, seemingly in a blink.

I’m not sure if we can point to any one thing that explains it across the landscape of the sport. For Rousey, it was her inability to evolve her striking that did her in. For Weidman it’s defensive lapses that are costing him. For him, it’s mostly correctable.

Even in defeat, he won rounds against Romero and Mousasi, and he fought a competitive first round with Rockhold, so he’s not washed-up—he’s making mistakes.

So I guess the question to you, Jeremy, is what do you make of this phenomenon? Is it a case of great fighters getting too complacent in their abilities or something else?

And specifically when it comes to Weidman, is he able to fix the problem, or does he become another speed bump on Gastelum’s upward path?

Botter: I don’t think it has much to do with great fighters becoming complacent, Mike. After all, truly great fighters—the ones who ascend to championship level—don’t get there by clowning around and occasionally deciding they’ve done enough work. They are obsessive, often to their own detriment.

I think we’re seeing the effects of a sport on the rise. For the past decade, we’ve seen athletic-style specialists like Weidman add tools to their base (wrestling, in Weidman’s case) and force their way to the top. As the sport grows in reach, it’s becoming apparent that just isn’t enough. The super prospects of 2017 are well-rounded in every aspect of mixed martial arts because they’ve trained in mixed martial arts. Not just wrestling. Not just striking. Not just jiu-jitsu.

But more importantly, it’s clear that once you reach the top, there are no easy fights. Even if you lose your championship, the UFC isn’t likely to help build you back up by matching you with an opponent you can beat. You’re either fighting top-ranked challengers, or you’re fighting the people the UFC believes can be the next wave of contenders.

Former matchmaker Joe Silva once told me that his job wasn’t making fights. His job was to find someone to beat each UFC champion. If you become one of the lucky few to reach the pinnacle of the sport and hold a UFC belt, then congratulations. You’ve made it. But as Weidman and others have discovered, winning a UFC belt is a blessing and a curse.

Weidman is still young. He’s taken damage and has been involved in brutal wars, but he’s still a guy who can find himself back in contention. But to do so, he’ll have to stay razor-sharp, because even if he beats Gastelum, there will always be another opponent waiting in the wings.

That’s the price you pay for, at one time or another, being the best at what you do.

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Ramzan Kadyrov: The Most Dangerous Man in MMA Is Not a Fighter

If there’s a disagreement, he beats first and asks no questions later. He believes gay people need to be purged from his country. Critics, including journalists, are summarily killed for infracting on his huge but delicate ego.
Unfortunately…

Unfortunately, those sorts of claims could fit a few different leaders on today’s world stage. Why should Ramzan Kadyrov and his jackbooted fiefdom in the tiny Russian republic of Chechnya be different? For most Westerners, Chechnya is half a world away and far out of mind.

But for MMA fans, it’s a shorter distance. Kadyrov is living right next door, and he’s more entrenched in their neighborhood than many might understand or wish to believe.

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel airs a feature Tuesday night on HBO that covers Kadyrov and his MMA ties in depth. Despite a handful of MMA reporters—Bloody Elbow’s Karim Zidan, who is featured on the show, chief among them—working for years to shed light on the 40-year-old toughman’s ties to the sport, a lot of mainstream fans still don’t seem to know much about him or his deeds.

Part Vladimir Putin, part Sonny Corleone, part Dana White, part Slobodan Milosevic, Kadyrov rules his tiny republic with an iron fist inside a four-ounce glove.

On the world’s geopolitical stage, he’s best known for intolerance to opposition and minorities, which manifests in brutal governing tactics. As Chechnya’s leader—his father, Akhmat, who was assassinated by rebels in 2004, was the nation’s first official president—Kadyrov overseas a fiercely militaristic state apparatus that has been waging various wars for decades and proudly brandishes bloody solutions at just about any problem, real or perceived. Just this year, Chechnyan journalist Elena Milashina reported that Chechen soldiers were systematically rounding up, torturing and killing scores of gay Chechens.

“He wants to be the only person in Chechnya who decides everything,” said Milashina on Real Sports. “The way you dress, the way you think, the way you pray. This guy wants to be a god for Chechens.”

(For his part, Kadyrov issued a semi-denial of the charges on Real Sports, noting that “we don’t have such people here” before adding that “if there are any here, to purify our blood, take them.”)

Whether intentionally or otherwise, Kadyrov The MMA Fan shows a different side to the world. Here, he’s the jovial impresario, trainer and cheerleader-in-chief, gleefully extolling the virtues of Chechen fighters and the glory they will bring to their nation (and, of course, their leader).

Imagine if American Top Team was state-run and you might have a sense of Akhmat Fight Club, the camp Kadyrov operates. The gym in particular and the general culture he is fostering are paying dividends for Kadyrov, as several established fighters—chief among them current UFC standouts Magomed Bibulatov (an Akhmat alum) and Zubaira Tukhugov—call Chechnya home.

But his ties don’t end on the undercard. Eyebrows broke chandelier bulbs when current and former UFC champs Fabricio Werdum, Chris Weidman and Frank Mir showed up at a 2015 fight night to party with (and purportedly get paid by) Kadyrov. Boxers Floyd Mayweather and Mike Tyson have shown up, too. Big-time fighter managers like Ali Abdelaziz (Werdum, Frankie Edgar, Khabib Nurmagomedov and more) and Abraham Kawa (Jon Jones, Tyron Woodley, Carlos Condit, Jorge Masvidal and more) also have had warm working relationships with the warlord.

Not everyone is super excited about getting cozy-comfy with a dictator, however. One notable holdout is the UFC. Kadyrov noted this on Real Sports and—are you sitting down?—said he was angry about it.

“We propose that UFC and Akhmat face off in a tournament,” Kadyrov said through an intepreter. “And we’ll see who has the strongest fighters. I think it would be quite a spectacle.”

Indeed. Oddly, no word yet from the UFC on this.

In the meantime, do you like Fedor Emelianenko? Kadyrov doesn’t seem to. Soon after Emelianenko recently criticized a Chechen MMA event for featuring underage participants, Emelianenko‘s daughter was assaulted in the street. No direct connection was ever made to Kadyrov or his people, but Kadyrov did say thereafter that he believed Emelianenko had “realized his mistake.”

In any case, MMA is a diversion for Chechen fans in that it diverts their attention from his repressive, my-way-or-you-better-start-running regime. It simultaneously celebrates and amplifies alpha male Chechen culture. Hard-faced, hard-bodied men for whom “death is better than second place,” as Kadyrov himself puts it in on Real Sports, may be the wartorn republic’s primary export.

MMA fans in other nations may have more options. Kadyrov is not a subtle person, and those things that bear his fingerprints, including his livestreamed World Fighting Championship Akhmat show, are not hard to identify. As impressive as it has been inside the cage, Kadyrov‘s MMA machine is far from the only game in town.

But as Real Sports shows, for now, it hums on. Sorry about all this repression—sorry, non-repression—but are you not entertained? Despite his murderous history, plenty of people in the MMA community have, to this point, seemed willing to play along.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The Question: Should McGregor Have Actually Been Sanctioned to Fight Mayweather?

The Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor world tour kicked off July 11 with four stops at major metropolitan cities across the globe. And with that, we can say, it’s really happening. This pipe dream of a fight that emanated from the eternally optimistic mind of McGregor has been willed into reality, and it is set to challenge the record revenue numbers generated by Mayweather’s superfight against Filipino boxing star Manny Pacquiao in 2015.

This is a different animal, however, and something that has rarely been seen at the elite levels of combat sports. It recalls the days of James Toney barking his way into an ill-fated matchup with former UFC champion Randy Couture.

We all remember how that one ended.

Nearly everyone in the know thinks McGregor-Mayweather will end in much the same way, with a one-sided drubbing that proves the obvious: that even a super-talent can’t go into another champion’s area of expertise and best him.

Still, this is a fight that has the sports world buzzing, and to offer the obvious, that mass appeal (translating into cold, hard cash) is the main reason such a fight will be sanctioned.

Really, though, it’s worth asking if that’s OK. In a sport where long-term health is at stake, is anyone interested in the safety of the fighters (i.e. McGregor) or are they all blinded by the dollar signs?

Joining me to discuss this is my colleague and MMA lead writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: I’m going to kick this off with the name Rohan Murdock. Who might he be? Less than two years ago, Murdock was put forth to the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) as an opponent for undefeated super middleweight boxing champion Andre Ward. At the time, Ward was 27-0 while Murdock was 18-1. Guess what?

The Nevada commission rejected the fight as a mismatch.

Murdock had 19 pro fights, but he had never faced any elite competition, while Ward was already considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

Less than two years later, 0-0 McGregor has been approved to face the greatest boxer of this generation, the 49-0 Mayweather. While it’s true that the makeup of the commission has changed a bit since then, current executive director Bob Bennett was already in his role at that time, as were three of the five current commissioners.

Given their extensive experience, they should understand the huge chasm in boxing skills between McGregor and Mayweather, and they would be within their rights to refuse to sanction it. In fact, some might even suggest that they had an ethical obligation to reject it.

Still, I can’t be an absolutist about this. I must try to put myself in their shoes and understand why such a decision would be nearly impossible to make. With so much money at stake, the fight is going to be made somewhere. Budget shortfalls across America are crippling states, making the prospect of turning down a cash injection from tourism and taxes unpalatable. There must be some pressure from the top to pull this off without a hitch, as if it’s some kind of heist. (And in a way, it is.)

On one hand, no one wants to be a party pooper. This fight is going to be one of the sports events of the year, and fans are incredibly excited about it. That’s a great thing!

On the other hand, what does the commission exist for if not saying no to such folly? Their short mission statement includes the phrase “The Commission administers the State laws and regulations governing unarmed combat for the protection of the public and to ensure the health and safety of the contestants.”

By approving this fight, are they abandoning that pledge?

Chad Dundas: I have to admit it looks pretty damning on the surface, Mike, especially when you start things off by throwing out the Murdock example. If all we had here were the numbers, it would look unjustifiable to throw a man with zero professional boxing fights out there against the greatest pugilist of his generation.

The fact is, Mayweather’s worst sparring partner probably has more boxing experience than McGregor.

But—as you note—we’d be naive to think the NSAC was ever going to do anything besides quickly rubber-stamp a fight of this magnitude.

And you know what? In this case, I’m OK with it.

Maybe, as an MMA reporter, I’m just sticking up for my guy here, but I have a hard time framing McGregor as a helpless sheep who’s being thrown to the wolves. Do I think he’s going to get unbelievably schooled by Mayweather in their boxing fight? Of course I do.

But I don’t fear much for McGregor’s physical health in this matchup.

He’s not just some jerk off the street, after all. McGregor has been fighting professionally for nearly a decade, has been at the pinnacle of MMA competition for the last two years and is the first man ever to simultaneously hold two different UFC titles in two different weight classes.

If he were going out there to fight an in-his-prime Mike Tyson, I might consider it unconscionable malice to sanction this fight. But the truth is, he’s not.

Mayweather has never been a particularly ferocious offensive fighter. Most likely, he’ll foil McGregor’s amateurish style with his peerless defense and movement and cruise to a unanimous decision.

Make no mistake, Mayweather will win the match in a landslide, but I don’t think McGregor’s in tremendous danger of grievous bodily harm.

Am I wrong, Mike?

Chiappetta: When we think of Mayweather, we consider him as a strategic boxer. He’s patient and crafty, and he creates traps for opponents to fall into. That’s been his standard operating procedure for two decades. Because he takes his time, we don’t view him as a “dangerous” fighter, but when we take into account the skill differential, isn’t it possible that Mayweather opens up his offense in a way that he won’t do against actual peers?

Generally, I tend to agree with you, Chad. It’s more likely that McGregor will leave with some bruising, a black eye, and a whole lot of cash than it is that he gets knocked out cold and hard. But what’s the point of going through the dog and pony show of sanctioning fights if not thinking about these hard questions?

According to the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC), a commission may approve a fight if the following information is similar: boxing record, boxing experience, boxing skill and physical condition.

Everyone on the Nevada commission would have to admit that in only one of those categories are Mayweather and McGregor “similar”: the last one.

Is that enough?

Again, I’m not saying I don’t want to see it or won’t watch. I do, and I will. Some of what I’m saying is hypocritical. But the commission is supposed to be better than me and you. They are supposed to think about the things fans (and fighters) don’t want to think about, and they are supposed to put the health and safety of the athletes first. It is crystal clear that is not happening here. It is crystal clear that is not even a remote concern.

McGregor may not get brutally knocked out, he may even have a couple of good moments, but for the most part, the chasm between him and Floyd should make everyone uncomfortable.

That the Nevada commission could overlook that so casually makes me think not just about this August spectacle, but about the other decisions they are making in the name of money or staying in the good graces of powerful fight promoters.

I’m sure everyone involved with the commission is blinded by the money involved or the spectacle of it all, but come fight night, that is one group that is going to be watching breathlessly in hopes that nothing goes sideways.

Am I being too harsh on them, Chad? You seem less bothered by their rubber-stamping, so what responsibility do you think they have here?

Dundas: I don’t think you’re being too harsh. I think you’re mostly on the money. In a theoretical way (and most practical ways, too) I agree with you. Those are all the things that a state athletic commission is supposed to do, and it’s not too harsh to want to hold them to the standards they are meant to keep.

But anyone who has ever had the misfortune of sitting through an NSAC meeting—either in person or streamed online—has had any notion of it as a pristine and wholly principled body dashed in a heartbeat. You and I have both probably seen athletic commissions in a number of states do things that made us cringe, Mike.

In my view, sanctioning a fight like Mayweather vs. McGregor is far from the worst thing I’ve seen an athletic commission do. This fight may be way out on the fringe of what is appropriate, but for now, I’m OK with it.

McGregor might be a fish out of water here. He won’t win this bout—or, if he does, it’ll be the biggest upset in the history of modern sports—but he’s a still a high-level professional fighter. He ought to know how to defend himself enough to at least keep it from getting scary.

And maybe I’m playing both sides of the coin here, but if we are going to have a borderline spectacle fight like this, I feel better having it in Las Vegas. At least in the fight capital of the world the commission, referee, ringside officials and physicians stand a good chance of being highly experienced.

I’ll take that over having this fight in Missouri or Texas or almost anywhere else—and we both know that’s what would’ve happened if the NSAC had turned up its nose and refused to sanction it. The promoters and fighters would’ve packed up the circus tent and kept moving until they found a state willing to give the green light.

Maybe I’m wrong, Mike. Maybe the things that await McGregor inside the boxing ring will be so horrific that it changes my mind. Maybe I’ll regret that this fight was ever made.

But for now, I’m riding the wave, baby.

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The Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor World Tour in 10 Quotes

The Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor world tour wrapped up on Friday afternoon, and it was an absolute roller coaster.
There were vicious one-liners, then there were head-shaking flops. There were memorable sights, then there was silly peacock…

The Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor world tour wrapped up on Friday afternoon, and it was an absolute roller coaster.

There were vicious one-liners, then there were head-shaking flops. There were memorable sights, then there was silly peacocking. There were tense moments between the two men, then there moments where the absurdity of all this shined through.

It was a war of words that had high highs and some low lows but delivered a number of memorable moments along the way. That makes it worth commemorating the last week by focusing in on what was heard, rather than what was seen.

Begin Slideshow

Floyd and Conor Are More Like a Comedy Duo Than Bitter Rivals After ‘World Tour’

Nobody enjoyed their time on the road more than Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.
Maybe in the end that was part of the problem.
The “world tour” designed to drum up hype for the pair’s August 26 boxing match wrapped up Friday in London the same way…

Nobody enjoyed their time on the road more than Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.

Maybe in the end that was part of the problem.

The “world tour” designed to drum up hype for the pair’s August 26 boxing match wrapped up Friday in London the same way it began Tuesday in Los Angeles—with Mayweather and McGregor standing on stage screaming obscenities in each other’s faces.

After four press conferences in four days in four different cities, there wasn’t much left to do. We’d already seen everything these two showmen had to offer. In that way, the initial publicity push leading up to next month’s mega-bout in Las Vegas certainly didn’t disappoint.

But it also didn’t really surprise.

The verbal barbs between Mayweather and McGregor remained predictably lowbrow throughout, but—while chaos eternally loomed just off stage—their traveling circus ultimately came off as contrived. Even as they preened and prodded and called each other every nasty name they could think of, it was plain to see there was no real animosity here.

“He could have rode off into the sunset 49-0,” McGregor told the London crowd. “Instead, this is my first time in a boxing ring, and in six weeks I run boxing. How the f–k did they let me roll up in here? They got f–king greedy, that’s how.”

Mayweather just laughed in response.

Indeed, when they finally make it to the ring at T-Mobile Arena next month, we can rest assured the competitive fires will be fully stoked. But this? This was just marketing—with Mayweather and McGregor starring as partners in crime.

“You’re the student. I’m the f–king teacher,” Mayweather told McGregor during his time on the mic Friday. “August 26 I’m going to take you to school.”

Aside from a brief scuffle between their two camps at Thursday’s event in Brooklyn, the fighters never really touched each other during this junket. Near the end of his remarks in London, McGregor rubbed the top of Mayweather’s head with his palm, but the boxer just chuckled at the gesture.

And so it went on. And on. And on.

Through these four events, which routinely started late and just as often dragged in the middle, neither guy succeeded in provoking much of a response from the other. In the end, the vibe was more like a series of celebrity roasts than an airing of real grievances. The back-and-forth flame wars played like banter between the leads in an awkward buddy comedy more than two men embroiled in a blood feud.

As McGregor stalked around the stage in Toronto on Wednesday and implored the crowd to chant “F–k the Mayweathers,” Floyd and his team roared with laughter. When Mayweather tossed handfuls of cash in the air over McGregor’s head at the Barclay’s Center to show that he had money to burn or that he owned McGregor—or something like that—the Irishman used it as a photo op:

Even when McGregor strayed over lines of racial sensitivity and repeatedly harangued Mayweather to “Dance for me, boy,” the boxer and his entourage only grinned at each other like they knew it was coming. And conspiracy-minded fight fans immediately began to speculate: Maybe they did?

And really, Conor and Floyd have no real reason to be mad at each other.

Especially for McGregor, this fight represents the opportunity of a lifetime. After more than two years of rumor and conjecture, the cocksure mixed martial artist has finally landed the opponent who will set his family up for generations. McGregor has already said he could bank $100 million for taking on Mayweather—a notable pay increase from the reported $3 million purse he earned in his rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202.

“I get to quadruple my net worth for half a fight?” McGregor said in London. “Sign me up.”

Likewise, there was no other adversary in the conventional boxing landscape who could bank Mayweather as much money as McGregor. The greatest pugilist of his generation now has the chance to end his brief retirement and collect a hefty payday for what he surely expects will be a light night of work.

So, yeah, who can blame them if during all this nose-to-nose gum-bumping it occasionally felt as though they could barely keep straight faces.

Aside from Thursday’s train wreck in Brooklyn, the two fighters managed to mostly keep things from going off the rails. McGregor started on shaky footing in L.A. but quickly regained the form UFC fans have grown accustomed to from their lightweight champion since he burst on the scene in 2013.

Meanwhile, Mayweather consistently showed why he’s been a top draw in boxing for years.

This was two of combat sports’ best trash talkers working in tandem to promote an event that will make each of them hundreds of millions of dollars. Every time Mayweather called McGregor a “bitch” or an “eejit” and every time McGregor poked fun at Mayweather’s age, fashion sense or reported trouble with the IRS, they were really just stuffing money in each other’s pockets.

Most everything here was all in good fun.

You could see it on the face of Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe, who—dressed to the nines nearly every step of the way—arguably laughed loudest at McGregor’s best lines.

You could see it in the Cheshire cat grin on UFC President Dana White—whose epic sunburn and thunderous introductions of McGregor were among the unsung stars of these events.

You could see it on the grimace of Showtime exec Stephen Espinoza, who, even during McGregor’s profane rants against him and his company, maintained an expression that said he’d sit there as long as it took to cash the checks from this pay-per-view.

And you could see it in the performances of Mayweather and McGregor themselves.

Credit these two men for going out there day after day to sell a grudge where none likely exists. With the bout itself expected to be a dominant victory for Mayweather, this fight had to be sold on the singular nature of the matchup and on doctoring-up some emotion.

Even if behind the scenes they’re laughing all the way to the bank.

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