50-0: Floyd Mayweather stops Conor McGregor in 10th round

LAS VEGAS — Floyd Mayweather Jr. figured out a 50th opponent, letting Conor McGregor have the early rounds before stalking him late and leaving the mixed martial artist defenseless and exhausted on the ropes.

Mayweather battered McGregor around the ring in the later rounds, finally stopping him at 1:05 of the 10th round Saturday night with a flurry of punches that forced referee Robert Byrd to stop the fight.

Before a pro-McGregor crowd that roared every time the UFC star landed a punch, Mayweather methodically broke him down after a slow start to score his first real stoppage in nearly a decade. He did it in what he said would be his final fight, against a fighter who had never been in a professional boxing match.

McGregor boxed surprisingly well early. But after landing some shots in the first three rounds, his punches seemed to lose their steam, and Mayweather went on the pursuit. McGregor backpedaled most of the way, stopping only to throw an occasional flurry as Mayweather wore him down.

“I think we gave the fans what they wanted to see,” Mayweather said. “I owed them for the (Manny) Pacquiao fight.”

McGregor had vowed to knock Mayweather out within two rounds, and he won the early rounds with movement and punches to the head. But the tide of the fight turned in the fourth round as Mayweather seemed to figure out what he had to do and began aggressively stalking McGregor.

“I turned him into a Mexican tonight,” McGregor said. “He fought like a Mexican.”

In a fight so intriguing that it cost $10,000 for ringside seats, McGregor turned in a respectable performance for someone in his first fight. But Mayweather’s experience and his ring savvy paid off as he executed his game plan to perfection.

“Our game plan was to take our time, go to him and take him out in the end,” Mayweather said. “I guaranteed everybody this fight wouldn’t go the distance.”

Mayweather was widely criticized for not going after Pacquiao in their megafight, and he didn’t make the same mistake this time. In a fight that could make him $200 million he seemed to stagger McGregor with a series of punches in the ninth round, then came back in the 10th eager to finish it off.

McGregor went over and hugged Mayweather. He seemed almost happy in the ring afterward, secure that he had given a good performance even in losing.

“I was a little fatigued,” he said. “He was composed in there, that’s what 50 pro fights can give you.”

Mayweather ran his record to 50-0, surpassing Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record and giving himself a great parting gift. He repeated afterward that he was not going to fight again.

“This is my last fight for sure. 50-0 sounds good, I’m looking forward to going into the Hall of Fame,” Mayweather said. “I picked the best dance partner to do it with.”

Irish fans arrived by the thousands in the days before the fight, filling the arena for the weigh-in and boisterously cheering for their man. They even went off in the middle of the night and spray painted an Irish flag and “49-1” on a billboard on Interstate 15 promoting Mayweather’s businesses.

The capacity crowd at the arena cheered McGregor on, but they quieted as the fight progressed and Mayweather showed his dominance.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Mayweather, McGregor ready to rumble in much-hyped fight

LAS VEGAS — Conor McGregor has been kept pretty much under wraps ever since his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. was announced, emerging occasionally to trash Mayweather only to disappear again behind the closed doors of the UFC training center.


It’s not by accident. The biggest selling point of the spectacle that is Saturday night’s 154-pound fight is the unknown.

Is McGregor good enough to land a big punch on Mayweather? Did he acquire enough boxing skills in just a few short months to make what should be a lopsided fight competitive?

Inquiring minds want to know, and there are enough of them to make this the most watched fight in history. Some 50 million people in the U.S. alone are expected to gather with friends and family to see it all unfold.

“I will be the king of both sports,” McGregor crowed. “I’m already the king of fighting, I’ll soon be the king of boxing.”

Not so fast, said Mayweather, who comes from a boxing family and famously began throwing punches before he could walk.

“After 21 years I’ve been hit with everything and I’m still right here,” Mayweather said. “If you give it you must be able to take it.”

It’s a fight that really makes no sense other than millions of people want to watch it. But the economics of the fight wouldn’t make any sense, either, if people saw McGregor — the UFC star who has never boxed professionally — in action and decided he just wasn’t good enough to be in the ring with a fighter like Mayweather.

No mystique, no 5 million buys on Showtime pay-per-view. That’s why there was never any chance of McGregor having a tuneup fight.

And that is why the only boxing anyone outside McGregor’s inner circle has seen was him hitting the heavy bag in a comical media day performance and a few seconds of a UFC clip purportedly showing him knocking down Showtime announcer and former fighter Paulie Malignaggi.

No worries, said McGregor, who says his boxing talents shouldn’t be underestimated.

“I’ve been lacing up the gloves my entire existence,” McGregor said. “Of course, we will come with a different approach than people are used to, we will paint many pictures inside the ring. It’s not going to end well for Floyd. It’s not going to end well for all the people who are doubting me and are so convinced that this is what it is.”

McGregor weighed in at 153 pounds Friday to 149 ½ for Mayweather. A crowd that nearly filled the T-Mobile arena — many waving Irish flags — cheered loudly for McGregor while booing Mayweather.

McGregor’s fan base is driving this fight, united in their fervent hope that the Irish UFC champion can muscle Mayweather around the ring and deliver knockout punches to his head. Sports books in this gambling city have taken so many longshot wagers on McGregor winning by a knockout early that they will suffer their worst loss ever should it actually happen.

What should be a 100-1 fight began as 11-1 in Mayweather’s favor. Now it’s 5-1, though a lot of big money — including a few million dollar bets — has been wagered on Mayweather in recent days.

“I don’t see him lasting two rounds,” McGregor said. “He messed up with the 8-ounce gloves. Keep your hands up, keep them down. I don’t care. I’m going to break through whatever is in front of me.”

For the flamboyant McGregor the fight is a chance to make money he couldn’t dream of in the UFC and gain a fan base outside of mixed martial arts. Estimates vary, but he could take home $100 million for a challenge of Mayweather that seemed improbable when he first started talking about it two years ago.

He’s got youth on his side (he’s 29 and Mayweather is 40), and he’ll probably go in the ring much heavier than Mayweather after rehydrating following Friday’s weigh-in. He’s also got a reputation as a big puncher and the prevailing wisdom is he’ll try to maul Mayweather much like Marcos Maidana did in their 2014 fight.

Other than that, everything favors Mayweather.

He’s unbeaten in 49 fights as a pro and has a chance to pass Rocky Marciano on the perfect record list with win No. 50. Not only has he beaten every fighter put in front of him but he’s found ways to deal with big punchers like Miguel Cotto, Diego Corrales and Canelo Alvarez.

He’s also a pure boxer with an innate ability to adapt to any fighter put in front of him.

Mayweather is so confident of his chances that he’s spent much of the week before his fight having meet-and-greets in the early morning hours at the strip club he owns not far from the T-Mobile arena where they will fight.

Though he’s made hundreds of millions in the ring, Mayweather has a tax lien of $22 million to the IRS, so the lure of $200 million to come out of a two-year retirement and face a novice boxer was great. But he said this will be definitely be his last fight, and he wants to go out with a dominating performance.

“I gave my word to my children and once I did that it came to an end,” Mayweather said. “What better way to go out than with a bang.”

The fight is expected to match or surpass the 4.6 million pay-per-views sold for Mayweather’s 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao at $99.95 a household. Industry observers say people across the country will use the telecast as an excuse to party in tense times and 10 people could watch each pay-per-view.

Tickets in the arena haven’t done nearly as well, largely because promoters wildly overestimated what people would pay to watch in person. Ringside seats were $10,000 and nosebleed tickets started at $2,500, though prices have been dropping rapidly as the fight approaches.

source: sports.inquirer.net

McGregor must get rough and creative to upset Mayweather

LAS VEGAS — Just 20 months ago, a former plumber from Dublin fought a fearsome superstar who hadn’t lost in a decade. Conor McGregor talked his way into a big-money showdown, but he had to back up his boasts against Jose Aldo, one of the greatest fighters in his sport.

McGregor finished the UFC featherweight champion in 13 seconds with one devastating left hand.

Floyd Mayweather presents an entirely different challenge when McGregor steps in the Vegas ring Saturday night. In his professional boxing debut, McGregor must figure out how to beat Mayweather at his own game — something the best boxers in the world have never done.

McGregor is a massive underdog, and deservedly so. But stop pretending the improbable doesn’t happen in combat sports, particularly when the self-proclaimed Mystic Mac is involved.

To declare McGregor can’t possibly win this fight displays more arrogance than, say, spending every night at a strip club the week beforehand, as Mayweather is currently doing.

Of course the hard-hitting Irishman has a chance — and there are several tactics he could employ to pull the biggest upset in boxing history.

“The people who don’t believe it don’t know anything about fighting,” said UFC President Dana White, who admittedly has a slight bias here. “This isn’t going to be a boxing match. This is going to be a fight.”

It’s also a fight between a 29-year-old southpaw in his prime and a 40 1/2-year-old veteran who hasn’t fought in nearly two years and doesn’t particularly want to be here, as he acknowledged repeatedly Wednesday. Mayweather isn’t the fighter he once was, and his competitive fire is dwarfed by his need for the mammoth paycheck from this endeavor.

But how does an MMA fighter with no competitive boxing experience since childhood take on a 21-year pro veteran with world championships in five divisions and arguably the most brilliant defensive skills in the history of the sport?

He gets in Mayweather’s face, both before and during the fight.

He charges forward from the opening bell and forces Mayweather to think defensively all night.

He throws hundreds of punches from every angle with the goal of setting up the vicious left hand that has turned out the lights on MMA opponents.

And if none of that is successful, McGregor could bend the Marquess of Queensberry rules to their breaking point in hopes of goading Mayweather into a brawl.

None of it is guaranteed to work. But it’s definitely worth a shot.

Looking back at Mayweather’s history is a daunting task, given his 49-0 record, but it contains clues for tactics that could magnify McGregor’s chances.

For instance, McGregor could amplify the strategy used by Marcos Maidana and Jose Luis Castillo. Both boxers pressed Mayweather constantly, using roughhouse tactics on the border of legality, and bombarded Mayweather with punches, many from unorthodox angles.

Mayweather won both fights, but definitely looked uncomfortable for long stretches. McGregor doesn’t have the hand speed of those professional boxers, but he should strive to emulate their urgency.

He should also attempt to show Mayweather things he’s never seen before in the ring, and his decision not to hire a boxing trainer for the bout might actually help in that regard. The UFC star should switch stances and try just about any punch, including the looping overhand shots rarely seen in high-level boxing matches because they’re easily countered, but common in MMA bouts because of the distance they create from the opponent.

If McGregor gets hit, so be it. Every punch absorbed is the price for a chance to reply.

McGregor believes Mayweather made a mistake by agreeing to fight in 8-ounce gloves instead of the typical 10-ounce pillows, but he shouldn’t rely solely on the unicorn one-punch knockout. While McGregor has definite power, only the biggest Mac homer would think it’s something Mayweather hasn’t seen from boxers — and Mayweather has shown a solid chin and excellent recovery skills on the few occasions he has been hit.

Instead, the key is to use that energy to get in a good position to unload the left hand or a combination through Mayweather’s shifty defense. McGregor could repeatedly tie up Mayweather and attempt to land shots in the clinch.

These things could all unsettle Mayweather, who typically doesn’t face trouble unless he takes a voluntary risk by moving into dangerous areas to throw combinations, or getting angry and brawling a bit.

And therein is another potential route for McGregor. Call it the Aldo Strategy: If he can get Mayweather feeling both confident and angry, there’s a chance Mayweather will let down his defense enough to attempt to finish McGregor in brute style — and maybe McGregor will have an opening.

Mayweather hasn’t seemed interested in McGregor’s typical trash talk during the buildup to the fight, but perhaps he could waver the champion’s focus with the wrong word, an errant elbow or a rabbit punch behind the head — enough to draw a warning, but not lose a point.

McGregor amplified his boasts this week, calling Mayweather “a broken man” and vowing to finish him within two rounds. Nobody knows whether McGregor actually believes his bluster, but the Irishman has defiantly vowed he will win.

It’s not probable. But with McGregor, anything is possible.

source: sports.inquirer.net

50 million could watch Mayweather-McGregor in the US alone

LAS VEGAS — Conor McGregor’s improbable challenge of Floyd Mayweather Jr. could be seen by a staggering 50 million people in the United States as fans and the curious gather in small and large parties.

The fight Saturday night threatens the pay-per-view revenue record set by Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao two years ago and could dwarf it in viewership as people use the event as a reason to have friends and family over for a little escapism and controlled violence.

“It’s a cultural event that crosses all demographics and all social and economic factors,” said Mark Taffet, who formerly ran pay-per-view for HBO. “People are getting together to have a great time and we surely need an excuse to have a great time.”

Taffet said that while an average of 5-6 people normally watches a pay-per-view, he wouldn’t be surprised if the fight averages 10 people a household. If it sells 5 million pay-per-views as widely anticipated, the fight could be watched by nearly one in six Americans.

The fight will also be seen by millions more worldwide, with promoters claiming it will be available either online or on a TV screen to more than 1 billion homes in 200 different countries.

“If you are in Manhattan or you are on a desert island somewhere, if you have Wi-Fi, you can buy this fight,” promoter Dana White said.

Each pay-per-view sale means more money in the wallets of both fighters. Though estimates vary widely, Mayweather is expected to make some $200 million, while McGregor will likely pocket at least $100 million.

Though ticket sales have been slow in Las Vegas — largely because of astronomical prices — the fight is shaping up as must-see TV at a price of $99.95. People are expected to buy the fight in record numbers, with many sharing the cost of the telecast with friends and family they invite over.

Taffet said people will treat it much like a Super Bowl by getting together in larger numbers than usual.

“I think this is first and foremost a television event,” said Taffet, who oversaw 190 pay-per-views in his career at HBO. “The success of this fight in the financial record books of history will be made on pay-per-view. And I believe it’s going to deliver.”

Industry observers say it’s hard to judge how many homes will buy a pay-per-view until the day of the fight many times, as people often buy late. But the anecdotal evidence — primarily the chatter on social media — indicates a good likelihood of it smashing the 4.6 million record of pay-per-view sales set by the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

That’s largely because the matchup will likely cross over from being just a sporting event to a party night.

“We have definitely seen massive general market interest in addition to the sports fan,” said Stephen Espinoza, who heads sports for Showtime, which will televise the fight. “These general market viewers are often not part of the audience for even the biggest combat sports event. So the ceiling is pretty high.”

Espinoza said the very nature of the fight — a matchup between a UFC star who has never boxed as a pro against one of the greatest fighters of his time — will drive the pay-per-view sales.

“We believe this is an unprecedented event, quite frankly no one knows what to expect,” he said. “The element of these two outspoken personalities in one unprecedented event is compelling.”

An early indication of interest in the fight is the massive betting both in Nevada and in other places where it is legal. Bookmakers say it will be the biggest bet fight ever, with an overwhelming number of the early tickets on McGregor to pull an upset.

Still, there are plenty of tickets left in the arena itself, where prices originally ranged from $2,500 in the upper sections to $10,000 at ringside. Ticket prices have been dropping in the resale market — with some available for less than $1,300 on Tuesday — and are expected to decline more in the days before the fight.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Mayweather, McGregor take trash-talk tour to New York

NEW YORK—Floyd Mayweather was on the attack on Thursday, branding Conor McGregor a quitter as the four-stop tour hyping their cross-combat superfight hit New York.

“Eejit” and “Circus Clown” were the tamest epithets the former welterweight king, who retired from boxing with a perfect 49-0 record in 2015, threw at McGregor, one of the biggest stars of mixed martial arts.

“Gave up not once, not twice but three times!” said Mayweather. “Real fighters never give up.

McGregor, a two-division champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has conceded three defeats in 24 bouts, all by submission.

The two men are set to face each other in a boxing ring in Las Vegas on August 26 in what could be the richest fight in history.

Thursday’s show at the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, drew a pro-McGregor crowd of more than 13,000.

It was the third such production in three days, with one more scheduled for London on Friday aimed at pumping up interest in the bout — although both men seemed to be running short of inventive invective.

McGregor eschewed his sharp-tailored suits for a bare chest and white fur overcoat — which he swept from his shoulders as he took the stage to offer a flexed-arm pose that inflamed the crowd.

The Irishman then paced impatiently as Mayweather, draped in an Irish flag, made his way to the stage and they took their positions for the ritual staredown from opposite sides of the podium.

A giant step forward from each had them nose to nose and brought more cheers from the crowd before McGregor launched into a lewd, crude address.

“No one’s going to stop me walking around this place like I own it,” he said.

Mayweather, meanwhile, was all indifference until it was his turn to speak. After a little back-and-forth with the crowd, he showered McGregor with handfuls of dollar bills from his backpack — a day after McGregor mocked the paltry stash of cash “Money” had brought to their promotional stop in Toronto on Wednesday.

“They’re all ones!” McGregor said. “Because that’s all you’re worth,” Mayweather replied.

source: sports.inquirer.net