Seamus O’Hanlon
I admit it.
I was caught up in the hype. While Conor McGregor fought bravely against Floyd Mayweather on Sunday morning in Las Vegas, he was never in a position to cause an upset.
Everybody predicted fireworks from the Crumlin man in the early rounds.
Most commentators felt McGregor’s best chance of victory was to utilise his bigger frame and rough Mayweather up.
This approach could knock his opponent off his stride and allow the UFC star to land a couple of big lefts.
But it just never happened and, you know, McGregor kind of fought like a guy who knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Surprisingly, his approach was cautious right from the first bell. Along with his backroom team, he no doubt had studied Mayweather’s style extremely carefully in the buildup but they obviously found very few chinks in his armoury. In my opinion McGregor fought like a man who didn’t think he could win.
Quite early on in his training camp there must have been a realisation that his boxing inexperience and lack of know-how were going to be costly.
Sparring sessions with other seasoned professional boxers would have highlighted these deficiencies. Team McGregor knew this and I think this dictated their approach.
McGregor knew he didn’t possess the boxing skills to stop his opponent so he chose to pace himself and try to go the distance. Lasting 12 rounds with arguably the greatest boxer since Sugar Ray Leonard would have been a moral victory of sorts for McGregor and the UFC.
I agreed with McGregor’s post fight assessment. Mayweather never really hurt him and it was fatigue more than punches that got him at the finish.
But it was his reference to Maywaether’s composure that was most telling. Not once did McGregor ever ruffle this composure.
Mayweather coasted through the contest at his ease and pocketed a staggering $300-400 million in the process.
For Team McGregor the biggest challenge was making the fight happen in the first place. Once this was achieved, it was then all about the hype and the money.
His $100 million dollar purse (and more possibly) was simply a case of doing good business...and it won’t end there. Who knows what the next instalment will be.