Conor gets in last word
But Floyd dodges circus jabs
LAS VEGAS — If we limit the competition to mere words, Conor McGregor bested Floyd Mayweather Jr. at yesterday’s final press conference for the fighters.
Mayweather chose to be philosophical, as when he said of Las Vegas, “This city is built on gambling, and I’m taking a gamble, but it’s worth it.”
He also chose to be paternal, as when he waggled his finger back and forth to tsk-tsk some planted yahoo from the audience who was shouting nasty comments at McGregor. (It appears Mayweather saved his best stuff for after the presser, telling ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio about a text he received from his good buddy Tom Brady.)
As for McGregor, he continued to be the Irish brogued trash-talker he’s been throughout the hypefest leading up to Saturday’s shotgun wedding of oldtimey boxing and the newfangled world of UFC.
Or, as the promoters keep calling it — so often by now that it’s ringing in my ears — “the biggest fight in combat sports history.”
True, even McGregor admitted the volume to his snark had been ratcheted down yesterday, telling the media mob, “This has been a lot more businesslike, a lot more subdued, the way I like it . . . sometimes.”
But McGregor still managed to raise eyebrows, as when he submitted this two-for-theprice-of-one slice of verbal pie: “I’m gonna (expletive) this boy up, make no mistake.”
Profanity?
Check.
Racial insensitivity? Check.
How long will this fight last? It won’t be your basic Red Sox-Yankees game, if McGregor is to be believed.
“I don’t see it lasting two rounds,” he said. “I feel I’ll have a decision to end it inside one.”
(Wonder how that kind of talk goes over with Showtime, which is hawking the big-bucks, pay-per-view spectacle.)
McGregor promised he is going to “break this old man.”
He observed that Mayweather made a big mistake in agreeing to have the fighters use eight-ounce gloves (the boxing minimum) rather than four-ounce gloves (the UFC standard), telling his opponent, “Keep your hands up, keep your hands down, I don’t care. I’m going to break through whatever’s in front of me.”
As to reports Mayweather might be placing a mega-wager on himself to win, McGregor said, “I think he has a big-time gambling problem. From seeing him, he gambles on halftimes, things like that. He shows what his wins are but never shows what the losses are. Maybe that’s why he’s in the position he’s in and had to take this fight.”
And when it’s all said and done?
“And when it’s all said and done,” McGregor said, “I’m gonna feel a little bit sad. Because you all should have kept your mouths shut. You should have left me over in that other game where I’m from, that more ruthless game where we bounce heads off the canvas and drill them into the floor. You should have left me where I was because this man is not on my level, he’s not even a quarter of the man I am.” So there.
But if McGregor earned points from the perspective of the verbal and the textual, Mayweather won the day on his mastery of the nonverbal and subtextual.
Each fighter stepped up to the rostrum for his opening statements and then sat behind a long table for the brief question-and-answer session. Microphones were placed in front of them. Yet when a question was posed to Mayweather, he stepped up to the rostrum to answer — and then remained there. When questions were posed to McGregor, the Irishman remained seated at the table, playing the schoolboy to Floyd Mayweather’s teacher.
What does all the mean? Absolutely nothing, except for the fact that it showed Mayweather to have a much better grasp on how to play these things.
Remember, this is a circus act, not a boxing match. And if you’re growing tired of the nonstop circus analogies to all things Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor, please drop a line this way.
Until then, we give you this: Yesterday’s installment in the buildup to what millions and millions of people are going to be watching Saturday night was held at the MGM Grand’s KÀ Theatre, which was custom built for the famed Cirque du Soleil.
That, then, would make what took place yesterday the Cirque du Mayweather-McGregor.
That has a much better ring to it than “the biggest fight in combat sports history,” don’t you think?