Floyd Mayweather ‘shocked’ by Conor McGregor’s boxing skills - ‘He’s a hell of a stand up fighter’

Floyd Mayweather defeated Conor McGregor via 10th round technical knockout last night (Sat., Aug. 26, 2017) inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada in a “Money Fight” that lived up to expectations.

Though it took a while for some people to get their live feed going.

Indeed, “Notorious” hung tough before Floyd put on the finishing touches, even winning the first three rounds rather handily after many claimed Conor wouldn’t even land a single punch. In fact, even Floyd couldn’t stop singing Conor’s praises, saying he was caught off guard with how well he boxed.

“He’s a hell of a fighter standing up — he kind of shocked me,” Mayweather said during the post-fight press conference (via MMA Junkie). “Our game plan was to take our time, let him shoot all these heavy shots, keep walking him down, keep walking him down, shoot heavy shots to the body, shoot big shots upstairs.”

Indeed, Conor looked rather fatigued in the later rounds, proving that Floyd’s gameplan was working to perfection.

“My dad thought it was going to go a little bit earlier around the seventh or the sixth, but it took us a little longer than expected, but we did what we said we were going to do,” added Mayweather. “I told you people I guarantee you this fight wouldn’t go the distance. I told you I was going for the knockout, I was going straight ahead.”

According to Floyd, he could’ve done what he does best and outbox Conor -- who was partaking in his first-ever pro boxing bout — but instead wanted to make it a longer fight in order to give back to the fans for what was a rather lackluster fight against Manny Pacquiao.

“I could have easily outboxed Conor McGregor, counterpunched him all night,” Mayweather said. “That’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to go out with a bang. I told you guys I wanted to go straight ahead. I felt like I owed that to the fans for the Pacquiao fight, even though I don’t owe anybody anything. I put the pressure on myself and did it myself. That was a goal of mine. I told you guys it wouldn’t go the distance.”

According to Floyd, he took good care of his hands prior to the fight, admitting they were a bit busted up, which forced him to ease back on the sparring.

“For the last month I didn’t do no sparring,” Mayweather said. “There’s no excuses. He came out here, he fought a hell of a fight, a hell of a standup guy. But I went out there to do what I do best. Find a way to trap him and then broke him down,” he said.

“I wanted my hands to be 100 percent for the fight. My hands are real brittle, everyone knows that. I wanted my hands to be solid when I come out here so when I’m shooting hard shots I’m able to put the guy down.”

Still, while Floyd Jr. -- as well as many others — were impressed with Conor’s boxing skills, some were not, including Floyd Mayweather Sr., who called “Notorious’s” performance “pathetic.”

Is normal.

For much more on “Mayweather vs. McGregor” be sure to hit up our comprehensive (and impressive) collection of event-related stories right here.