Anyone near the top of the Red Panty Night queue will be focusing on the obvious Conor McGregor weakness displayed in the Money Fight.
Just when you thought that the target on Conor McGregor’s back couldn’t get any bigger, he goes out and lasts nine full rounds with arguably the greatest boxer ever in his professional debut.
There were a lot of positives to take from McGregor’s performance in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Although Mayweather’s experience, fight IQ, skill and gameplan proved to be just too much for McGregor, ‘the Notorious’ did enjoy a lot of success in the early exchanges.
With so many people predicting that McGregor would not land a single punch against the master of evasion, the notion of McGregor winning multiple rounds against ‘Money’ seemed absurd in the build-up. However, McGregor cracked Mayweather a few times, landed 111 punches in total and by most people’s scorecards, including ringside judge Dave Moretti, he took the first three rounds.
Plus it’s impossible to ignore the powerful new weapon McGregor added to his already impressive arsenal.
Spending so much time focusing on one striking art was always going to result in vastly improved boxing from McGregor, but that jab was a real revelation. We haven’t seen much of it inside the Octagon before but considering how well it worked against Mayweather, expect to see more of it.
While it’s great to highlight the good, it’s also important to address what went wrong.
One of the obvious flaws in his game was brought up by a few people, including the man who missed out on a red panty night because of injury, Rafael dos Anjos. Although the Brazilian’s hyperbolic tweet was clearly an attempt to goad McGregor into fighting him, he did touch on something that everyone witnessed.
Conor is a first round fighter, no cardio no heart you still owns me a fight #fouxo #chickenheart
— Rafael dos Anjos (@RdosAnjosMMA) August 27, 2017
McGregor did all his best work in the opening rounds and while he hung in there for a couple more, there was a noticeable drop-off in his performance from the sixth round onwards. Fatigue is expected to set in the longer a fight goes on, but when McGregor gassed, he was really running on empty.
His mouth flopped open, his breathing became laboured, he wasn’t as light on his feet and there was a huge decrease in the sting of his punches. Once Mayweather realised that McGregor was spent, he moved in for the kill and got the finish in the 10th round.
Mayweather’s cardio is up there with the best in any sport, and it’s true that a different type of cardio is required for boxing as opposed to MMA. The rounds may be shorter, but there’s more of them and a good referee will ensure that there’s little time to rest during the fight. However, we have seen this drop-off from McGregor before.
After he lost to Nate Diaz, another fighter with ridiculous fitness, in UFC 196’s main event, he cited being ‘inefficient with (his) energy’ as the main reason for the loss. He addressed this problem to edge a majority decision in the rematch, but even in that fight, McGregor looked good early before looking bolloxed.
He dropped Diaz three times in the first two rounds of UFC 202’s headliner, but there was a momentum shift once he began tiring in the third. Diaz landed more than double the amount of strikes McGregor managed in that round which some people, including Octagonside judge Glenn Trowbridge, felt was a 10-8 to the Stockton native.
McGregor got his second wind to put on a fight-winning display in the fourth, but Diaz definitively took the final round when McGregor had already given everything he had.
The problem for McGregor is many of those waiting in line to fight him next, including Diaz and Tony Ferguson, have stellar cardio.
This flaw could be correctable in the gym or it could just be the cost of that ultra-aggressive from the get-go style that has served him see well in the UFC.
The perceived key to beating McGregor is to let him expel his energy and drag him into the deep waters. Diaz did that once, came pretty damn close the second time and Mayweather admitted that was his gameplan after he made it 50-0.
