Arena The Boxing Discussion Thread

When this McGregor v. Mayweather fight became official, I was a bit ashamed that Mayweather would make such a fight. So even though I knew Conor had no serious chance of winning, it would have been fitting to see him get lucky and KO Mayweather.

But now Team McGregor keeps putting out these edited videos of sparring to pretend he's taking out boxers, only to constantly have the unedited footage show just the opposite.

First of all, sparring victories are meaningless. The partner is there for your benefit to sharpen up. They will not always fight their style. And you rarely have sparring partners actually trying to *win*, let alone knock out.

So now McGregor has lost any timid support from me. He's destroyed that "rooting for the underdog" goodwill. Essentially he has become Mayweatheresque. You respect their skills, but you kinda want them taken down a notch for their antics.

 

Floyd embarrassed himself tonight.

This is why even though Floyd has a *great* record with big names, it is all a smoke screen. It is why I could just never call myself a Mayweather fan. His wins crap all over the larger sport of boxing.

 

Mayweather wins. On his turf, his rules, basically all pre-rigged in his favor lol

Worthless, pointless fight, in other words. Glad I didn't bother to watch.

 

ref had to jump in , i mean mayweather's punching power could have done permanent damage

 

Conor has nothing to be ashamed about. heels1785 , I think you are being too hard on Conor's possible *bad* training. Anybody that has played a serious sport knows that you grow immeasurably in *actual* events. Yes, training is important, but it is important because you take every mental note you took during the last actual event and work on that.

Conor gassed because
1. You can't train for a high profile event without high profile event (boxing match) as your template. You just can't anticipate how to *calm* your adrenaline during the actual event. You can box 48 rounds no problem and then in the live even have an adrenaline rush that you just don't get from training negate your entire conditioning training. Wladimir Klitschko was a great fighter, and that was his Achilles' heel he never mastered.
2. He came to win and he knew he had to get respect early and even a couple of rounds. If Conor went into round 7 with only 0 to 2 rounds won, he'd have to start taking chances that Floyd would have capitalized on. So all that conserved energy would have been meaningless.

EDIT: Mayweather should have been in control from the opening bell. Conor's only chance should have been a one in a million shot that catches an overconfident Mayweather early on. Conor surpassed that and then some.

Canelo v. GGG will hopefully return all the fans boxing lost tonight. I've become so disillusioned with boxing the past couple of years that I'm starting to not recognize the names of the up and comers.

 

Mayweather is an abuser of women. That alone makes me dislike the guy...

 

Was at a friends for a combo Fantasy Football draft/fight. It was better than I thought it would be

 

Had this been an MMA fight, do you think Floyd would have lasted until round 4? Do you think he would have performed better than expected? I don't. It would have been a fast and humiliating loss. That is what Floyd had to do last night. He didn't. It should have looked like the Arturo Gatti fight, but maybe even faster and more humiliating. The fact that it went nothing like that is both a credit to McGregor and discredit to Floyd. Floyd's 50-0 really needs an asterisk now. (And people talked about Roy Jones fighting less thans)

The boxing forum watching round by round essentially had the entire forum embarrassed for their sport as it was happening.

As far as the UFC preparing Conor for "the event" in terms of anticipation, it can only do so much. You always have that adrenaline rush. You learn to tailor it to the situation. It is why they talk about home field advantage. This was home field advantage on steroids. The ring, the crowd, the spectacle, the climate, the rules, the equipment, the ref, the judging ... just about everything was not "automatic" for Conor. Even the *striking* is different. An MMA strike is quite different from a boxer's punch. I have no doubt that if Conor were allowed to fight 2 to 5 pro fights before his debut at the top level, he would have done significantly better and not lost simply because he couldn't catch his breath. But we both know that Mayweather would then find a way to not fight McGregor under those conditions. Heck, he could have at least allowed 4oz gloves. One concession amongst thousands. It would have changed little on the outcome, but at least would have shown Floyd to be somewhat of a sportsman

As far as Fat Dan giving Floyd the first round, the fact that the round was even in question is why Conor "won the event" and Floyd lost it. Or I should say, boxing lost it. Conor didn't win the round from a lucky punch. Conor had decent footwork, a decent jab, landed a couple of uppercuts and had Floyd missing. And the fact that we are even talking about Conor's JAB is a testament to Conor.

Everybody knew Conor had only a one in a trillion chance to actually win. So it comes down to performance expectations. Conor exceeded his and Floyd fell far short.

 

If this was MMA I doubt this would have even gone past round one, as Conor would have been allowed to do a lot more in there than simply punching.

 

Other than the official result, a major win for McGregor and an embarrising victory to put Mayweather in the record books that will always be followed by the word 'but.'

 

TBH, I didn't know this until you posted it. My initial thought was "well, it is Fat Dan. Somebody that can be quite insightful, but has also shown extreme bias." Rafael has followed up with:

Who are the few others? If they get paid for their boxing opinions, they should be given pink slips. Too many people set this whole thing up as MMA v. boxing ... one ring to rule them all. It's stupid. I think much of the bias wasn't for Mayweather or Conor as much as somebody like a Rafael thinking his job is to save boxing instead of just giving an honest assessment. The boxing forums were confident during the lead up, scared and embarrassed during the fight and now in hilarious damage control post fight. Everything from Floyd was toying with Conor from the opening bell (he wasn't) to it was scripted (tin foil hat).

Boxing was hurt last night not because it says anything about the skill and technique of boxing. The #1 reason Conor lost (outside of fatigue) is that having limitations in a sport is an art form. No hands in soccer/futbol. Does that mean it isn't up to par? No. It is a discipline. That limitation of just using your "fists" means you have to get everything out of those fists. That includes feints, misdirection, combo set up, angles, etc. And you have to do all that while maintaining the power of the actual punch. Conor did great on the former, but failed in the latter. His uppercut in round 1 was great skill in the former, but he couldn't combine it with the power that would have immediately stopped Floyd from adopting the low and forward head style. Boxing as a style/technique is still as great as it ever was.

Boxing the sport was (and has been for a long time) slaughtered. Last night should have been no more than an unofficial exhibition with absolutely no bearing on a win-loss record. It should have been on the undercard of GGG v. Canelo. It can't because of networks and promoters. The business of boxing is killing boxing. It isn't a sport. It is practically "pro wrestling" at this point.

 

conor was much better then i thought he was but his weakness has always been cardio he throws everything and then gasses same thing happened in the diaz fight when he got made to tap

this fight made floyd look terrible conor was gassed legs stuffed and he still couldn't finish him. as for conors claim it was an early stoppage he does get wobbly when tired and in actual mma fights he has came back and won when gassed before he is also a warrior who doesnt want the ref to end it

in the end the result says mayweather wins and 50-0 but mcgregor 5 years ago was on welfare and was being supported by his gf and now he just got paid over a 100m for a fight in a sport he had no experience in

had a laugh about twitter people saying dirty tactics by mcgregor the hammer fist is second nature to mma it was pure instinct

 

Everyone assumed that Mayweather would win anyway. McGregor was out of his element and out gunned. But he held his own for 10 rounds against the best boxer in the last 20 years. I call that a hell of a fight.

 

It was though at the end of the day a glorified exhibition which it should been since Day 1. Conor is not a professional boxer no matter what Nevada Athletic Commission says. It was a fun fight and Conor did himself well all things being equal but the fact that fight actually counted for both guys was just silly. Had Floyd lost I would felt the same way too. He should not been 50-0 after this fight just like he should not been 49-1 either.

 

Let's not get carried away. The fight was horrible. It is only *good* because of the lowered expectations of a non-boxer being surpassed.

This guy was totally ignored the entire fight


Floyd turned his back on McGregor multiple times a round. The ref should have been warning, taking away points and threatening a DQ on Floyd so he'd stop that BS.

Then there was the problem of breaking the fighters. The rules are that they are not to be broken unless both hands are not punching. Multiple times, Conor was still punching with his free hand.

And after rewatching, the stoppage was premature. There was talk of Conor not punching for a minute, but that was a lie. Conor was throwing 13 seconds prior to the stoppage. Neither fight was truly in danger of being hurt. Both were feather fisted (relative to pro boxers).

If you want to see a great fight, then watch this one.

 

I don't even like Mayweather, but there are some hysterical posts in this thread.

Actually, yeah, the kind that don't knock you out are the worst kind, because you just keep taking them. It's absolutely conventional thinking.

It's never really been his style, he often gives away the early rounds, studying his opponent, getting their timing down, finding their openings, staying cautious early on while they still have their best punches. He opens up later when his opponent is fatigued and less of a threat.

This is how many older, veteran, "slick" boxers fight, including Bernard Hopkins. It's strategy.

No, it doesn't need an asterisk at all, and it's completely crazy to suggest it does. Like, 100% insane.

Floyd has never really been a bulldozer, he doesn't run people over. Not his style, and even less likely to happen at 40. Not sure why you'd expect him to suddenly wipe a guy out.

No, there won't be a but, nor should there be. The guy is, without a doubt, an all-time great, with a singular record.

The fight went the distance? I thought it was a TKO?

That's not how this works.

Wut?

You know Floyd has done this like a million times, right? He used to do it every single fight when he was young. He used to have conversations with the damn ring commentators. He'd literally turn to them and say something, circle around the ring, come back and finish what he was saying.

First, that's not true. The last punch Conor threw was a weak little tap to the body at 2:20, and the fight was stopped around 1:56 (1:55 officially, I believe). Second, Conor was completely done and not resisting. Hell, they (probably) would have stopped the fight in the UFC if a fighter looked like that. I've seen it before.

Being feather fisted doesn't really matter, Conor was completely defenseless, and the punches add up. We know that fighters have been killed going the distance against opponents with little power. Floyd was teeing off. End of fight.

 

First, you can't compare this fight to recent fights like Canelo and Pacquiao. You compare this fight to the Gatti fight, except Gatti has more boxing skill and quite a bit more stamina.

It's strategy to take an uppercut-hook combo in round one from a D level boxer? Sorry, but no. Did you see the fight? Conor was showing fatigue as soon as round four.

Ok. So I'm positive you didn't see the fight. You are talking about a shoulder roll. This is not a shoulder roll.


I don't know if you can comment on people making hysterical posts if you didn't actually watch the fight.

 

yeah the ref stopped the fight because he was gassed not one of those punches did much even wobbly legs floyd still couldnt drop him

 

I'm not comparing it to any fight, I'm telling you the style Floyd has shown over his entire career, especially as he's gotten older. He has a very long history of giving away the first four rounds, only to win every round after. It's intentional.

You're the one calling for it to be like Gatti, a fight from TWELVE years ago.

So, like, the exact time Floyd started winning rounds?

Calling for asterisks and a DQ on an undefeated, surefire all-time great is completely hysterical.