Fight, in the end, was just entertainment
As a general rule, single boxing matches don’t settle anything. They set up the next thing, the rematch, the next spectacle.
In that regard, like almost everything else emanating from Saturday night’s Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor match, we’re going to be left unsatisfied. What did the results of this match create? Probably not a whole lot. Certainly not a rematch.
Fans of both boxing and mixed martial arts will claim vindication for their sport, whether it’s actually deserved or not. But even to a seasoned boxing man like ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas, the impact of the Mayweather-McGregor tussle was contained to a single night.
“It was never a competitive athletic venture,” Atlas said on Sportsnet The Fan 590 on Monday. “It was like a night on Broadway. Just entertainment on a Saturday night. People get bored and they want to be entertained.”
The 40-year-old Mayweather said afterward that his 10th round TKO triumph was important because “boxing’s reputation was on the line.” But he couldn’t knock down a non-boxer in his first match in 714 days, and immediately afterward said that was his last fight. That would be a good thing. He’s got nothing else to prove, and apparently not much more to offer, other than to show the absence of real competition in the boxing game.
McGregor insisted he would knock Mayweather out, but then switched positions after as quickly as he switched from lefty to rightie during the match. No, he said, he proved everyone wrong by merely almost going the distance before the referee stopped the fight because he was no longer capable of defending himself.
Such bravado before, such a plaintive search for moral victories.
It was, to be fair, a surprisingly entertaining match, perhaps not full value for $99.99, but not a complete rip-off like the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight had been. There was no time at which it seemed likely, or even possible, that McGregor would be able to win the match, so instead the broadcast team pumped up the mere fact the 29-year-old McGregor was able to be competitive.
Even that came with an asterisk. By the seventh round he was obviously starting to tire, and by the eighth round he was no longer a threat to Mayweather, particularly with the referee on the constant lookout for his “hammer fist” manoeuvre and other MMA tactics. He didn’t have the skills to seriously attack the 49-0 boxing champion, and he lacked the endurance to take the fight to the distance.
As Atlas pointed out, while some expected McGregor to aggressively go after Mayweather in search of a knockout, that’s not his style as an MMA fighter, and it certainly wasn’t his approach Saturday night. He sat back, won a couple of early rounds, and ultimately forced Mayweather to go on the offensive and produce the decisive blows. That was a subtle twist that was intriguing to fight fans, but it was hardly one to generate explosive headlines.
McGregor was able to prove that he’s tough and can take a punch, but didn’t we already know that about him? Anybody who dares step in the octagon has guts, but this match against Mayweather was, in the minds of MMA supporters, supposed to prove there was a superior level of skill and talent to go with that.
Maybe there is. But we didn’t see that on Saturday. We just saw a tough nut with a 20-pound weight advantage hanging in there against a fading champion who doesn’t really hit to hurt like he once did. McGregor complained afterwards that rather than stopping the fight the referee should have “let the man put me down,” but Lord knows how long that would have taken and it was already 1:30 a.m. in the east.
Hopefully, McGregor won’t take too much encouragement from his own words and think he can take on one of the younger competitors in that weight class. He’s liable to get hurt if he does.
In the end, the match wasn’t farce, not like Muhammad Ali taking on Antonio Inoki in 1976, and there was no sniff of impropriety or a script to produce a specific outcome. Ali and Inoki had agreed to such a script back in ’76, but then Ali balked, and the “fight” ended up with Inoki lying on his back most of the match kicking Ali in the legs more than 100 times while Ali could barely land a punch.
If that contest was the standard for other fights between different combat forms, well, Mayweather-McGregor went far above and beyond that disgrace. Lots of people bought Saturday night’s pay-perview and weren’t complaining afterwards. But as the evening wore on, it ending was obvious, and it was clear the early rounds had contained all the tension and entertainment there was likely to be.
To claim that as Mayweather’s 50th triumph against zero defeats, well, let the boxing experts fight that one out. Fighting a non-boxer seems a weak way to make the record books, but we know boxing trots out all kinds of barely qualified individuals to serve up to champions and up-and-coming talents. So, whatever
About the only intrigue to come out of the match was to wonder what McGregor may do next. He’s still the biggest star in MMA, with Jon Jones in trouble again and Ronda Rousey a vanquished former champion. But the pay days in Dana White’s world aren’t what they were for McGregor on Saturday night, so there’s going to have to be some creative thinking to come up with the Irishman’s next spectacle if people are going to buy.
Wrestle Jinder Mahal? Compete in an ironman competition? Try out for an NFL team?
It better be good. Otherwise, Saturday was McGregor’s moment in the sun. His best decision would be realize that and not to take another similar risk again. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for The Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.