People still seem to be really invested in the idea that Conor McGregor get credit for standing in the ring with one of the greatest boxers of all time, but that's kind of stupid, considering these people aren't big on participation trophies the other 99% of the time. CM Punk took up the challenge of stepping into the Octagon and they've been laughing at him ever since. So I'm not willing to listen to that crew when it comes to giving people credit for just getting in there. And apparently, neither is Floyd, because you're a fucking fool if you think Floyd is about to reciprocate.
And I'm not really going to give Conor that much credit for how he performed, because for a guy who's boxed before, he looked to me like a guy that was just gonna muddy this thing up and hope for the best. And clearly, he was excited for his huge payday, because he couldn't stop showing Floyd his appreciation during the fight in the form of exuberant hugs.
But you can't tell Conor's fans that he wasn't in the fight. To let them tell it, he controlled the early rounds and had a puncher's chance to win, like aggressive fighters don't get knocked out all the time. And he fought like believed it, though, because he was just throwing shit out there, and doing random shit, changing directions, in an attempt to trick Floyd. Like Floyd hasn't fought a clueless amateur before. Sometimes, he wasn't even throwing punches, just touching Floyd's face. I bet there's audio of Conor saying "boop" every time he touched Floyd's nose. Conor looked like a guy that didn't know what he was doing, which is illustrated by the fact that Conor couldn't stop trying to suplex Floyd. No, the truth is, Floyd controlled that fight from the opening bell.
I mean, it's not like you have to watch a lot of Floyd Mayweather fights to get a feel for how he fights, and I wouldn't recommend watching him a lot, anyway, unless you're trying to induce narcolepsy. Personally, I've watched three fights that I remember, and one of them (Shane Mosley), I was so fucking drunk. There's no clever description of how drunk I was, either. I was just drunk, yelling at a stranger across the room about how he was scoring the rounds. Fred, if you're out there, bless you and your wife for listening to me babble until I was sober enough to drive. I still didn't know how to drink like a grown up in 2010.
So that's roughly two and two-fifths of his fights that I was sober enough to process, and that's enough to know when he's taking the fight seriously. Say whatever you want about how he ducked fighters, when he was in the ring, he was all business. Yeah, him and Pacquiao were fucking decrepit when they finally fought, but you could see on Floyd's face that he was there to end the talk about this rapidly deteriorating semi-pro basketball player once and for all. When Shane Mosley rocked him early in their fight, the look on his face said that he wasn't gonna let some dude with light eyes and an S-Curl take him out. Conor McGregor never once got that look from Floyd Mayweather, because Floyd knew he didn't have to try. The looks Conor got from Floyd ranged from "mild indifference" to "bemused." It probably took all he had not to laugh once he saw Conor's strategy of randomly changing directions. And I gotta say, it was funny as hell watching Conor try that and get punched dead in the face anyway.
And that's why Floyd didn't bother with his shoulder rolls, and that's why he kept going forward. He could have treated this like a real boxing match, but for what? He wasn't fighting a real boxer, and honestly, Conor probably would have done better not trying so hard to box. But acting like Conor McGregor was a serious competitor in this is really doing a Conor a disservice, because you're about to convince this dude that he can do it for real and get put to sleep by somebody who's younger and hungrier. Shit, Floyd almost did it and he wasn't even trying.
We weren't watching a competitive boxing match; we were watching a boxer spar with a guy trying to box.
And in that context, Conor never stood a chance.
