Conor McGregor went into the ring, at the T-Mobile Arena, as a champion. He left as a champion but a little more humble and with more lessons to learn.
‘The Notorious’ as self belief that can never be doubted. He convinced himself that he could beat the greatest boxer of his generation on his own boxing debut, and he was so good at it that he took a whole bundle of people along for the ride.
In the end, though, Floyd Mayweather Jr. weathered the storm, figured his game out and stopped the Dubliner in the 10th round. After moving to 50-0, Mayweather praised McGregor for his spirit and skills and told all of Ireland that they should be proud.
McGregor impressed even more souls with his humble, frank post-fight interviews than his gutsy in-ring performance.
Once the fight was over, the UFC champion cracked open a bottle of ‘Notorious Irish Whiskey’ and toasted to a damn good knock against one of the best.
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In his own words, McGregor is just back around after a crazy few days and nights in Las Vegas.
He posted a classy Instagram messsage that perfectly captured the mood of what was a fight that no-one will forget for a long, long time. He wrote:
‘Just coming back around after a whirlwind couple of days.
‘Thank you to all the fans for the support of the fight and the event! Without your support we as fighters are nothing so I thank you all! Thank you to my team of coaches and training partners!
‘I had an amazing team and It truly was an amazing and enjoyable camp, and honestly I feel with just a little change in certain areas of the prep, we could have built the engine for 12 full rounds under stress, and got the better result on the night.
‘Getting to 12 rounds alone in practice was always the challenge in this camp. We started slowly getting to the 12 and decreasing the stress in the rounds the closer it got to 12. I think for the time we had, 10 weeks in camp, it had to be done this way. If I began with a loaded 12 rounds under much stress I would have only hit a brick wall and lost progress as a result and potentially not made the fight. A little more time and we could have made the 12 cleanly, while under more stress, and made it thru the later rounds in the actual fight. I feel every decision we made at each given time was the correct decision, and I am proud of everyone of my team for what we done in the short time that we done it.
’30 minutes was the longest I have fought in a ring or cage or anywhere. Surpassing my previous time of 25 minutes. I am happy for the experience and happy to all take these great lessons with me and implement them into my camp going forward. Another day another lesson!
‘Congrats to Floyd on a well fought match. Very experienced and methodical in his work. I wish him well in retirement. He is a heck of a boxer. His experience, his patience and his endurance won him this fight hands down. I always told him he was not a fighter but a boxer. But sharing the ring with him he is certainly a solid fighter. Strong in the clinch. Great understanding of frames and head position. He has some very strong tools he could bring into an MMA game for sure.
‘Here is a toast of whiskey to everyone involved in this event and everyone who enjoyed it! Thank you to you all! Onto the next one!’
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As for the next one, speculation is rife in the United States that McGregor is lining up his trilogy fight against fellow UFC star Nate Diaz for December 30.
