You’ll be doing well to find a more intelligent and coherent argument for Conor McGregor beating Floyd Mayweather.
While there are a lot of analysts doing great work to highlight the magnificence of Floyd Mayweather, the vast majority of those saying Conor McGregor has no hope are doing so blindly. They haven’t seen McGregor’s fights, hell a lot of them haven’t even seen a Mayweather bout, but what they have seen is their boxing records.
They’ve heard the wave of negativity, they’ve heard the criticism of McGregor’s boxing style, they’ve heard this, they’ve heard that, but they haven’t seen anything with their own eyes.
And there’s a whole heap of people talking about this fight like they’ve already seen it happen.
He's right but… he's wrong https://t.co/hZGc1xCkNm
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 23, 2017
One man who hasn’t already written off McGregor is UFC flyweight king and pound-for-pound great Demetrious Johnson. When asked who he thought would win the Money Fight by press in Las Vegas, he didn’t hesitate to predict a huge upset.
Mighty Mouse’s prediction is a little meatier than most, though. He actually went into detail about how he feels McGregor will win. (quotes via MMA Weekly)
“Mayweather is not a pressure fighter. He does not push the pace. You can watch all his fights. All his opponents go to him and he beats his opponents by patience.”
Nearly pisssed herself #MayweatherVsMcGregor https://t.co/YfZFhzR4jp
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 26, 2017
Unsurprisingly, Johnson sees that patented left hand as McGregor’s path to victory. He feels that Mayweather will go on the backfoot at some point, which will allow McGregor to tee off.
“Conor McGregor has patience. Conor McGregor’s style is he uses his upper body to move and make people miss and he hits them with his left cross. I can see Mayweather putting himself against the ropes and Conor can just walk him down and pick his shots. Then all Conor has to do is make sure when Mayweather throws that cross, he’s just got to make sure that he’s out of the way from it so he can deliver his left cross.”
He believes this is the ‘perfect’ match-up because of Mayweather’s defensively-minded style. If it was Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin, he wouldn’t be favouring McGregor, because he doesn’t see ‘the Notorious’ having success against boxers who ‘put it on him’.
“It’s always about distance. A lot of people don’t give Conor McGregor the option or you guys are too blind to understand. I’m a mixed martial artist, I can tell that somebody understands distance.”
If this ends up happening, McGregor could rightfully claim to be the king of boxing, while Johnson could well be the king of boxing analysis.
It’s a fairly big ‘if’ though.
