EASY MONEY IN SIN CITY

Mayweather and Mcgregor pull off the perfect heist in Vegas and they’re both LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK

IN Las Vegas of all places, they pulled off the perfect heist.

They put their arms around each other, the victor and the victor, and saluted the biggest financial coup in sporting history.

Floyd Mayweather and Conor Mcgregor looked like a pair of highend safecrackers who could barely believe they had just emptied Sin City’s biggest vault.

Not only had they pulled it off, they had done it with genuine credibility.

There was no fix, no farce, it turns out Mcgregor can box just a little bit and Mayweather had to earn what most will count as his 50th and final victory.

So many thought there would be losers, but there were only winners. If the fighters, the promoters, the TV executives and the sponsors could actually have scripted it, this is how it would have panned out.

Mayweather, now with an extra £155million to flash, takes his leave with a fight better than his previous ‘last’ big one, against Manny Pacquiao.

Mcgregor landed punches, won rounds, took one of the greatestever boxers to round 10 and trousered £77m.

Boxing remains a noble art that just any old scrapper cannot succeed in, while mixed martial arts will get some new viewers when the charismatic Conor returns to his day job.

Mcgregor brought his own brand of Irish whiskey (inset, top) to the press conference stage. There were trebles all round.

But this was no charade and the bottom line is that Mcgregor has got some serious cojones.

No matter how much you are getting paid, to step into the ring and go toe-to-toe with the best pound-for-pound fighter of modern times takes some level of courage.

Mcgregor was even annoyed with referee Robert Byrd for not allowing him to get flattened.

The UFC poster man is genuinely fearless.

“I am open to all options now,” he said. “I am fresh to fight, that is what I love doing.”

Those options can surely not include boxing.

There might have been some fanciful notions of Mcgregor causing a seismic shock when he enjoyed himself in the opening exchanges, but there was never any doubting the outcome that arrived in the 10th round.

Mcgregor landed 111 punches, more than most have done against Mayweather, but Floyd’s face remained blemish-free.

After the first couple of rounds, Mayweather, who revealed he had not sparred for a month, could move with unusual directness because he knew Mcgregor simply could not hurt him.

“He was solid,” said Mayweather. “But it was not the type of power where I could not come forward.”

Taking boxer retirement announcements seriously is a dangerous game, but this seems to be the end for Mayweather, who could clearly not believe his luck over this one.

“I’m not a fool,” he said. “If I see the opportunity to make $300m in 36 minutes, why not?”

But what now for 29-year-old Mcgregor, a character certainly not to everyone’s taste?

Outside the UFC radius, he now has a new audience and the curious thing is that he mixes distasteful trash talk with disarming honesty and charm.

“I think I gave a good account of myself,” he said. “I really enjoyed it. It was a fun fight, but it was just fatigue. I just got bollocksed.”

He did give a good account of himself, but not good enough to believe this sort of crossover event will happen again in the near future.

Not with him, not with anyone else.

“This was freakish, a oneoff,” said UFC president Dana White, who does not expect Mcgregor to look for another boxing opportunity.

“This isn’t what he does. He’s a mixed martial artist, he’s better when he uses all of his weapons. I think he did great, but I want to seen him back in the UFC.”

Which is where he will return to, even though he does not have to. Not after this, not after the great Vegas job.

Like two partners in the wake of a beautiful supercrime, Mayweather and Mcgregor (inset, bottom) disentangled themselves and finally went their separate ways.

One heading for his own strip club, one heading for a yacht in the Mediterranean.

Each celebrating their perfect heist.