Midnight Mania! Floyd Mayweather says Conor McGregor going the distance would be “a victory for him”

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Mayweather has said a couple things in the lead-up now to try to convince people that his fight against McGregor will be exciting, unlike his normal fighting style. He mentioned going after Conor in that interview where he also brought up racism; he has said he and Conor owe the fans an entertaining fight; and now, he says that if Conor goes all twelve rounds, that would be regarded as a win for the Irishman. Transcript via MMAFighting.com:

“It is a victory for him,” Mayweather said. “If he goes the distance, it’s a victory for him. In my eyes, also.”

He’s doubtless correct, for many. Not everyone, of course; some, including McGregor fans, or MMA fans who don’t watch boxing, or casuals who know little about either sport, would be disappointed in any outcome other than a McGregor knockout. McGregor himself has repeatedly forecast an early knockout for him. Most who watch boxing, however, agree that the odds are hugely stacked in Floyd’s favor; if Conor just goes the distance, and lands any significant shots at all, many would call that a win for him, even say McGregor performed above expectations. Floyd knows this.

“He believes it’s not gonna go past four ,and I believe that it’s not gonna go the distance at all,” Mayweather said. “He feels one way, I feel another way. we’re both confident in our skills. We’ll just have to see.”

This is where Mayweather began to oversell McGregor’s skill, using Trumpian levels of gaslighting:

Of course, the so-called boxing experts, they say things like, ‘Oh when a guy is bigger and stronger, that means he’s better,’” Mayweather said. “What I'm saying is this: On paper, we know he’s taller, we know he has a longer reach, we know youth is on his side. OK? And I guess everybody is saying power is on his side. But I’m saying IQ is on my side, experience is on my side and i think just fighting knowledge is on my side.

No boxing experts are saying that for this fight. Floyd is literally pulling that out of thin air. He goes on:

“So I never said that I feel that I’m gonna lose. I never get involved in anything if I think I’m gonna take a loss. That’s like me saying, ‘Yes I’m gonna invest my money, but I know I'm gonna take a loss, but I'm still gonna invest it.’”

He went on to detail his scouting process, which he says is more detailed than just studying tape:

“It’s about doing your homework,” Mayweather said. “It’s not really watching fight tapes. It’s really just knowing the person you’re facing, that’s across the ring from you. You want to know what that person likes to eat, you want to know what that person is doing when they’re not in training camp. If they’re drinking, how much they’re drinking, who they’re hanging out with. Those are the things that you want to know. Thats called really doing your due diligence and your homework on your opponent. Not just watching fight tapes.”

He said he knows that McGregor weighs about 160 right now. And then he reiterated that he owes the fans a memorable performance, especially after the Pacquaio fight:

“When it’s something of this magnitude, this is not just a fight,” Mayweather said. “This is an event. This is billion-dollar fight, it’s an event. I think we both owe the fans as well as the public, everyone that’s tuning in, I think that we both should give them excitement.”

I’ll believe that when I see it.

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Podcasts and Audio

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Stay woke, Maniacs! Follow me on Twitter @Vorpality. And to all, I have to apologize for last night’s headline. That was all me, and to be honest the headline was misleading. In my head, it made sense. Jones Jones thinks Cormier crying indicates he cares about the sport, which is beautiful. Therefore, Jones thinks Cormier crying is beautiful. A=B, B=C, therefore A=C. I thought, and still think, that for Jon Jones, who has never lost, who is the guy inflicting the career-altering defeat, this was an incredibly arrogant and pathological thing to say. However, that was pretty clearly opinion, and while I am allowed to write opinion in Midnight Mania, I’ve pretty much always led with news. I should have indicated that it wasn’t strictly news, or re-worked the headline entirely.