I have to say, this thing did kind of live up to the hype. McGregor couldn't pull it off against one of the best boxers to ever live, no surprise there; but he did show that he can hang, and even did better than a lot of other fools they put in front of Mayweather.

I think the main factor was speed. Mayweather's cruising speed (speed he can maintain without much exertion) is much higher than anyone else's, and his explosive speed is unreal. McGregor was able to explode to match this speed a few times for the first three rounds and get some good shots in, but he tired out much more quickly. He was breathing hard by the 4th round, and I didn't see Mayweather breathing at all until round 8, and by that time McGregor had slowed down considerably. The TKO stoppage did seem premature, and he probably could have stayed in the fight losing trades at best, eating punches at worst, until the end. Either way, Mayweather was closing in.

Also, I think it's stupid how many times they wound up in that clinch situation where Mayweather would put his head down and McGregor kept hitting the back of his head. Aren't both of those things illegal? Were points deducted? Boxing sucks.

As someone who bought this no it didn't live up to the hype I don't really know what I was expecting coming in but it wasn't Mayweather holding a guys hand for 8 rounds and then saying ok now i'm going to punch you. I've been watching boxing on HBO for the better part of 20 years now and anyone who thinks Mcgregor has any ring acumen as a boxer doesn't watch boxing. He doesn't move his head, his footwork is atrocious and his for all the accolades of him being a hard puncher he isn't.

If you are getting really your first foray into boxing might I suggest go back and watching Mayweather vs Mosley from 2010 now that was a boxing match and the closest i've ever seen Mayweather to getting his head knocked off and also was the fight that gave me appreciation for Floyd's skill because that son of a bitch can take a punch.

I mean if you bought the PPV, I don't anything could have justified that price tag. Maybe if it came with a lap dance.

I don't think McGregor was trying to say "I'm a real boxer now". Just show that he can get in the ring against the best and throw hands as a fighter. Also the fat stacks he made off of it.

That fight was only entertaining because Mayweather changed his style to fight a backpedaling McGregor who claimed he was going to knock floyd out. I give McGregor props for fighting a smart fight (he would have lost even quicker if he was the aggressor fighting into Floyd's counter punching), but he was an absolutely awful boxer just as Mayweather would be awful MMA fighter. I don't understand anyone calling for the fight to have been extended (including McGregor himself). Any boxing fights gets called at that point before a fighter can be seriously damaged. He wasn't protecting himself at all. At least lift your hands.

Also props for bringing up Mosley. My favorite fighter up until those Vernon Forest fights where Forest made him look average. Don't think Mosley was ever the same after that.

Actually really if you want to distill boxing to it's purest most entertaining form just watch Bowe vs Golota. Bowe was probably the hardest hitter of his day but he was fat and out of shape for this fight. Golota beat the shit out of Bowe for 7 rounds but for whatever reason couldn't stop punching him in the dick and finally after the 4th time got disqualified. Then shit gets interesting MSG turns into a fucking riot cops got thrown out of the ring people getting stretchered out of the arena, HBO fleeing ringside having to broadcast this panorama of the entire arena and this went on for a good 15-20 minutes at least.

Y'all idiots if you didn't bet all your life savings on mayweather. It was like printing money.

Ok now that we've gotten that guinea douchebags rant about his supposed wealth out of the way on this thread we can go back to the topic at hand.

It's been a long while since I watched boxing or MMA, but I went back to watch some of Mayweather's fights prior to this McGregor hype train and one thing that stood out to me is how he lets the opponent tire themselves out, and then starts to fuck with them way faster than they can react.

Watching the McGregor fight was a repeat of that. I figured he wouldn't take the bait but he did.

Yeah but it was more of him wanting to put on a show for at least the last 15 or so years Mayweather's style has been to throw almost no punches for the first 3-4 rounds I mean the guy could take a fucking pillow into the 8th round. Obviously there's a valid reason for this it for one like Jovan's say was to tire your opponent out and the other reason is to get a feel for their timing. But the Mcgregor fight was none of that it was Floyd at least giving the people at home a show because lets face it most of the people who watched it aren't exactly informed boxing viewers and probably thought wow that fight was good I mean he lasted 10 rounds! But the truth of the matter is that Floyd coached him through 8 rounds than took the training wheels off at that point and a round later you had Mcgregor stumbling around the ring like some sort of end fight montage from Rocky. And like Lana said you have to be insane to think that fight shouldn't have been stopped at that point Mcgregor was in a position to really get himself hurt.

I thought mayweather would knock him out in 7th or 8th but I'm curious how often does someone get tko'd without hitting the floor once and no swelling or cuts

Swelling or Cuts is a product of MMA and having smaller gloves. The real damage in boxing comes from internal injuries (brain swelling, etc). You DO NOT want to risk that type of injury and being that McGregor didn't even try to lift his gloves while getting pummeled resulted in a valid TKO. Would the McGregor fans have preferred he got hit with some 30 more punches to the face unprotected and ended up talking like Michael J Fox? That wasn't out of the question at the rate they were going. I bet if Ali didn't take those last few fights of his career he'd have never ended up with parkinsons. He was a defenseless punching bag in the ring who just took shot after shot and McGregor was to that point. You HAVE to defend yourself in boxing or it's going to get called for your own safety.

Thumbs up

There's swelling and cuts in boxing that stop fights but those are good points Staley. I haven't seen a big boxing match stopped like that before though.. but to be fair mcgregor was out of his element. Im all about brain safety I think McCarthy totally blew it in jones vs cormier he took way more damage than necessary

I should correct myself: Exterior swelling is common but I think swelling is generally more based on the genetics of the person (Arturo Gatti for example could be poked in the face and swell up). Cuts in boxing are generally the result of something illegal though with headbutts being the most common. Elbows, etc. Not saying it can't happen without those but it's rare. I didn't see Jones/Cormier as I don't see most MMA (I used to watch the early UFC without weight classes, Royce Gracie and what not, but haven't kept up since like UFC10), but don't they usually stop those the second someone pounces on the other guy? Especially when it seems like you can hit in the back of the head in MMA, that should be stopped INSTANTLY.

It <i>widely</i> varies. In the dark ages, for sure UFC 1 - 10, it was ultra brutal. No weight classes/gloves, only illegal strikes were eyes, groin, and maybe a couple of others. Saw a guy take hard elbows to the back of the head repeatedly, but somehow didn't die. I'm not sure if this is entirely true, or maybe I'm mixing up some details, but it's something like there were no MMA-related deaths in America until 2010, and that one was a freak brain injury of previous condition, that was <i>loosely</i> related.

To survive, the UFC had to legitimize itself as a sport. Tons of rules were added to the modern UFC, and even more are coming every few years; no kneeing a downed opponent was the latest, though that was partially modified. In modern UFC, it can range anywhere from the ref stopping the as soon as the guy hits the ground, to letting him get pummeled for up to 15 seconds, somehow scramble back to his feet, and one hit KO the other guy (bout I'm referring to is Chieck Kongo vs. Pat Barry).

I'd say the majority of TKO stoppages in the UFC are guy falls from a clean hit, one or two hard uncontested shots on the ground, and it's called. They have some of the best-quality referees, so it probably compares favorably to other MMA organizations like Bellator.

Wow

My input:

1. McGregor won the first 2 rounds (maybe 3) I really liked his technique, keeping Mayweather back and using his superior reach.

2. The fight was entertaining, only because it was the best fighters of two different sports coming together and the hype. Most people thought Conor would get beat... I think it was entertaining because he won the first few rounds and came out explosive. Then it was interesting to watch the decline.

3. Mayweather clearly the smarter fighter. He used his head/body to get inside on Conor, forcing him to exert more energy to get him off.

4. I expected Conor to have better conditioning, even in his UFC fights he looks extremely gassed past round 3 (championship fights).

5. All in all it was a good fight, a lot of analysts were predicting Conor wouldn't even hit Floyd. He got in some really good shots, but ultimately he was outclassed.

The only reason he got hits in is because Floyd is in his 40s tbh

you would know about exerting energy to get him off eh Mark?

In the earliest UFC's only rule was no eye gouging. Google UFC 4 groin shots. It was brutal. My dads friend fought Joyce in one of the finals. Varlan was a monster so Joyce just leg kicked the shit out of him