There's really not much in the way of analysis of this fight that hasn't already been covered. There are a few things that even the most accomplished of journalists haven't touched on that I'm going to try and present here. Some of it might be total horseshit, but you're here for my opinion and that's what you're going to get. I'm going to have a crack at cutting through the hype bullshit that's being chucked around, and present things as realistically as I can. Things kick off after the jump. Here we go!
Let me kick things off here by stating my true opinions on this fight as an event. This fight should not happen. The UFC lightweight division, which is probably the most exciting and dynamic shark tank of a division in all of combat sports, should not be on hold while their champion ducks out for a year to go to pursue other endeavours (incidentally, McGregor has not yet defended either of the titles he's won in the UFC). By the same token, the greatest boxer who has ever lived should not be coming out of retirement to fight someone with an 0-0 record. Ever. McGregor should be defending his title against Khabib Nurmegomedov or Tony Ferguson and Mayweather should stay at home, counting his money. However, combat sports are special in the world of sports, in that the will of the people is one of the strongest factors in matchmaking. Nobody at FIFA gives a fuck if the majority of people want USA vs North Korea as the 2018 World Cup Final, but the practice of buying pay-per-views and subscription services puts a significant amount of power in the hands of the fans to control the trajectory of popular fighters. This is great for the casual fan; their favourites get forced to the top, sometimes at the expense of sporting process. This fight is the biggest show of the fact that the big money from the fans is always too good for promoters to turn down. At the end of the day, promoters are selling entertainment, not sport, and this is the biggest, most farcical soap opera that's ever been presented to us in the guise of legitimate sport. Enough about that though, it's happening and I'll just have to deal with it.
Let's start off by talking about Mayweather. I've said already that Mayweather is the greatest boxer who has ever lived, and I fully believe that he is. There are a select few who come close; Julio Cesar Chavez, Rocky Marciano, Willie Pep, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Gene Tunney, Marvin Hagler, Jack Johnson. All of these are wonderful, wonderful boxers but all of them have question marks over their records due to a variety of reasons including everything from a lack of equivalent level competition all the way through to Mafia interference. Nobody has fought the level of competition Mayweather has and maintained an undefeated record. Of course, there is the fact that he didn't fight Pacquiao while Manny was in his prime, but that's an endlessly flogged dead horse that most who are in the know would agree was entirely irrelevant. Mayweather does not have the most pleasing style to watch, but he has an undoubted mastery not just of boxing technique, but of boxing gamesmanship. Mayweather is a puppet-master, and everything from his opponent, to the judges, the ref and the media all dance to his command.
Mayweather is a defensive counterpuncher and a flaunter of the rules who works tirelessly to restrict the output of his opponents. He is right-handed, and stands in the stance known widely as the Stonewall, otherwise known as the Philly Shell. This involves standing almost side-on, with the front shoulder raised high to protect the chin and the front arm low, protecting the body; the rear hand tucks up by the side of the face, the glove acting as protection for the jab, but also leaving that dominant hand cocked for the counter punch. Take a look at the image below for an example, from Mayweather's fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez.
This is effective against orthodox stance (right hand dominant) fighters, because, as they step in with their right hand straight, with it deflecting off the shoulder, it presents a wonderful angle for the return. Here it is in action against Shane Mosley. Just beautiful.
Mayweather's other tools are his pivoting footwork, and his ability to clinch when he begins to get uncomfortable on the back foot. The pivots occur either after his right hand, where he steps deep inside his opponent where they're still recovering from the hit, steps turns 90 degrees, and then hits them again when they're forced to turn to face him; or when he's against the ropes, he employs a check left hook, almost pushing with it, and pivots out of the room it creates. This is the tactic that nullified Pacquiao.
He also can duck his head right down to waist level and follows his head out of the gap, sometimes even shoulder barging his opponent's hip line on the way out.
The clinching aspect of his game comes as his opponent forces him into a position of discomfort. This can happen in one of two ways. The most common way is that he uses that Stonewall guard, and steps in as his opponent opens up for a flurry. With his lead hand low, it is in perfect position to slide out and around his opponent's body beneath the armpit (underhook), whereas the high rear hand can catch the bicep on the opponent's punching arm, and curl over the top of it to grip the arm (overhook).
The other is when an opponent is aggressively coming forward with a relentless pace. Mayweather sneaks in that same right hand Stonewall counter when he can but follows it up by storming into his opponent and holding on. This is the technique Mayweather employed to tire Ricky Hatton early on before dominating the pace and asserting himself. There's no gif here because I can't find footage of decent enough quality, sorry.
These are Mayweather's dominant tactics for a layman. There are a few other aspects to Mayweather's game that I'll explore later, because they specifically play into what I want to discuss about McGregor in context of this fight. These will also by no means be exhaustive. While Mayweather may seem simple, you could write a full textbook on the intricacies of his game that I'm simply not qualified to speak about.
As for McGregor, he is perched in his position as the UFC's golden boy due far more to the gift of his gab than his fighting ability. That's not to say that he's not legitimately one of the best currently in the sport, more that he would not be in the position he is in without his promotional ability. His ascendancy is almost completely unprecedented. He's good looking, has an exciting and reasonably unique style to watch, says wildly confident and outlandish things, and then almost flawlessly backs them up in the ring. He would be popular regardless of his success. His rapid rise, during which he protected and given favourable matchups wherever possible (more on this later) led people to be stunned when he KO'd who I believe to be the pound for pound best in the UFC at that time. José Aldo was a man who had utterly outclassed every single one of the best featherweights in the world, including Frankie Edgar, who himself was a former lightweight champion who moved down a weight class. Unbeaten in 10 years against the finest strikers, most proficient grapplers and toughest all-rounders, Aldo lost his cool in the wake of the cocky Irishman's trash-talk, crumbled under the pressure of a full 18 months of hype, build up and expectation, and uncharacteristically rushed into the breach, where he was met with an absolute howitzer of a left hand. While his own punch also landed, he never knew it. He lay face down, 13 seconds into the highest profile fight of his career.
FUCK. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
I'm still so, so salty about this fight.
All that build up, and this is literally the whole fight.
My balls were so blue that they still haven't recovered.
From then on, McGregor was booked straight in to fight the UFC Lightweight Champion at the time, Raphael Dos Anjos (hereby referred to as RDA because fuck typing that lot out all the time). RDA was a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (grappling centred on taking your opponent down to the mat and securing a chokehold or limb crank) with some vicious kickboxing. Essentially the same as Aldo, without the same stellar record, but with 15-25lbs extra muscle on him. After RDA was injured, Nate Diaz (UFC lightweight barely ranked in the top-10 of the division at the time) stepped in as fourth choice replacement, agreeing to a Welterweight fight due to the short notice to make weight. After losing to Diaz by submission in that fight, and returning a decision victory in the rematch, McGregor finally got his chance at the Lightweight strap against Eddie Alvarez. Eddie is a notorious hardman. A brawling wildman with legit skill in wrestling. Often in his fights, being punched was a wake-up call, getting rocked to his boots was like a message that the fight had started, he seemed to relish being punched in the face. When McGregor hit him though, his eyes showed a look nobody had ever seen from him. Fear. Bewilderment. McGregor carved him up and that was the last time I viewed him as a fluke and a product or marketing. This fight was the true show of how legit he was, and this was his last fight before this whole debacle. Now let's have a look at what got him to this point.
McGregor is also a counterpuncher. He stands in a karate-style, quite often known as the "bladed" stance, as a left-hand dominant (southpaw) fighter. Here's an image comparing him to Aldo's stance; a much more traditional, kickboxing based MMA stance.
Now, McGregor's bladed stance preys on MMA fighters' tendency to over-extend on their punches. Compared to Aldo's stance, there is a much longer distance beyond McGregor's front hand that a fighter has to cover before it reaches McGregor's head. For McGregor, this gives him the opportunity to fire in that left hand while the opponent is off balance, and running in to the punch, essentially tripling its power. The earlier clip of the fight against Aldo couldn't illustrate that more perfectly. This works best against right handed fighters because their guard is "open". Again, referring to the stance comparison picture (while it's not a picture from an actual fight, it's really usefully spaced to act as one) see how the placement of McGregor's front leg outside Aldo's front leg presents a perfect path for that left hand, where the head cannot be protected by either the rear glove or the front shoulder.
McGregor pretty much eschews the jab for much of his fights, as in his stance it would be very difficult to produce power from it. Instead, the lead hand is his measuring stick, gauging his distance in both offensive and defensive contexts, and acting as a distracting probe on his opponent's guard. When his opponents are really covering up, he even uses it as a lever, pulling away his opponent's hand to open up a gap. This is a wonderful veteran technique from the old-world of boxing, not often seen nowadays. See how Foreman prises open Ali's guard with his lead hand held out in front of him almost at full length at the start of this gif, and how it allows him to throw that enormous right bear-paw straight into Ali's forehead and eyes.
What McGregor does in the absence of his jab, is use the low-line side kick to maintain the distance. This is a favourite technique of Bruce Lee. Lee, whilst "only" an actor instead of a legitimate fighter, dedicated much of his life to studying all forms of martial arts, and is widely recognised as one of the grandfathers of MMA. In his book, The Tao Of Jeet Kun Do, in which Lee divulges in great detail his philosophies for fighting, he returns time and again to this kick, stating it as hitting the nearest target with the longest weapon. What better way to hit and not be hit back? See here how he doubles up on it, in order to damage the leg and body, and create distance between himself and the stocky Russian kickboxer Denis Siver.
In fact, kicking is a much bigger component of McGregor's game than his hype (certainly in the lead up to his last few fights) would have you realise. The second most important component in setting up that long left hand after his stance is the left high kick. Throwing his left shin high and hard at the side of the opponent's face causes them to raise and stiffen their arms at the side of their head so that their forearm can block it and blocks the path for them to circle away to that side. This leaves a perfect gap between the forearms for that left hand to hit the chin. On the other hand, feint and change them up enough, and they could also be ducking their head to the side in order to dodge the left hand straight, leading them to lean into the high kick. This is classic, fundamental southpaw kickboxing technique. See how he mixes both aspects of the "Southpaw Double Attack" to dismantle poor, poor Denis a bit more. See how blocked kicks open up the punch, and how dodging the punch leans into the kick.
As well as the traditional left high kick preventing opponents from circling towards Conor's left, Conor uses spinning heel kicks to prevent his opponents from circling out to the right. This is a wonderful way of forcing them to move in straight lines, either forwards onto the left hand, or backwards to the cage. While McGregor primarily throws these as a shot for nothing; a deterrent as opposed to an actual attempted strike, they boast the added bonuses of looking really fucking cool and blowing your opponent's head off if it hits too. Diego Brandao learned this the hard way whilst circling away from Conor's left hand and high kick.
Again, this is by no means an in-depth breakdown of McGregor's game, just a taster to give you an idea of what you'd look for in a standard McGregor fight.
But this isn't a standard McGregor fight.
The one thing everybody says about this fight is how McGregor brings things to the table that Mayweather has never seen before. They talk of "MMA distance" or "MMA angles". This is bullshit, pure and simple. Anybody you see talking about this is just repeating an expert who knows it's bullshit and is saying it to get their face on TV or in articles, or repeating somebody else who isn't an expert. "MMA distance" is referring the fact that the barrier of space that Conor (and other MMA counterstrikers such as Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva, and Gunnar Nelson) exhibit is much larger than the distance between boxers. This causes their opponents to have to rush in through a much larger window of opportunity for said counterstriker. It's also a product of the fact that MMA fighters must be mindful of their legs as a target, a defensive tool and an offensive weapon. At standard "boxing" range in MMA, a fighter must be aware of the fact that they can have their legs tripped from under them, they can be thrown on their head, they can be choked, or they can have their head grabbed and be forced onto a knee, amongst other things. In boxing, the fighters are spaced much closer together both because these things aren't a worry, and how it gives their opponents less time to react to their own punches. McGregor's only advantage at "MMA range" is that he has a reach advantage over Mayweather, but if he thinks he can stand at that range and win by throwing single punches over long distance, then he's delusional. Mayweather will carve him up like a Christmas Turkey. They also have talked about the point that the fight will be contested in 8oz gloves as opposed to the standard 10oz gloves for fights contested above the 147lb weight class as if this is an advantage for Conor. MMA gloves are usually 4oz, and are open fingered, quite obviously far different to boxing gloves.
These are both a properly dogshit example of boxing gloves and MMA gloves, but it illustrates my point well enough. There are two reasons why this isn't an advantage to McGregor. Firstly, Mayweather has fought most of his career with 8oz gloves as opposed to 10oz. Secondly, lighter gloves gives Mayweather a speed boost compared to what hes used to, whereas McGregor's hands will be double the weight they usually are, thus he'll be slower. The one thing Conor has to hope for in this context is that Mayweather breaks his famously fragile hands early on in the fight due to the reduced padding. McGregor's a reasonably good-looking guy, but his head's a bit like a nuclear warhead balanced on top of his candlestick body. That big ol' dome could be a weapon.
Also, as a guy who has never been known for his cardio fitness, not only will McGregor fade faster with each punch due to that extra weight, Mayweather's beastly conditioning will carry him even further should this fight reach the later rounds. Bear in mind that McGregor is used to fighting in 5 minute rounds, with a maximum of 5 rounds total (if you're McGregor, you're looking to finish that early), while Mayweather is quite happy to take a full set of 12 three minute rounds without even breaking a sweat.
So what can McGregor bring to the table that Mayweather's opponents couldn't. Well, two things:
- Conor has wrestled or grappled nearly every day of his life for the last 10 years.
- Conor is used to being elbowed in the face.
You must think I'm absolutely fucking mental, because neither of those things are legal in a boxing ring. I quite agree, but as stated before Mayweather's game is as much about playing the rules as it is being a great boxer. What happens if the ref allows the two fighters some leeway with regards to the clinch game? Conor will be at least 10lbs heavier come the night of the fight (even though the fight will be contested at a 154lb weight limit, McGregor will be cutting down to that and bulking up after the weigh-in, as is standard practice in MMA [a weight cut of 25-30lbs in MMA is not uncommon, including dehydrating to lose every last pound], Mayweather will obviously be doing the same, but on a much smaller scale as the already smaller fighter and in line with boxing practices) and one would think he would use his increased experience of grappling positions, leverage and striking to give himself and advantage. We already know Kenny Bayless (Usual referee of choice of the fight's sanctioning body, the Nevada State Athletic Commission, has come under criticism in the past for being favourable to Mayweather) is not the referee for this fight. Bayless is famous for breaking up clinches and standing fighters apart before re-engaging them. Robert Byrd has been named referee for this fight, and he is famous for the opposite reason - keeping to the background, letting the fight take its course, valuing the clinch aspect of the game. This will obviously delight McGregor's camp because, despite the condition in the contract that McGregor will forfeit 90% of his purse should he be disqualified for using MMA moves, he will need every ability to bend the rules with regards to clinching as possible. The one way to do this would be with the move made famous in Sandy Saddler's third fight with the inimitable Willie Pep. While Pep was by far the superior technician in all three of these fights, Saddler was able to push and bend the rules to his favour, winning all three fights inside the distance. In the third fight, Pep retired with a shoulder injury, having been jerked around by Saddler's overhook. Absolute filth in terms of the rules, but beautiful execution in the context of a fight.
Incidentally, in MMA, (then) Light Heavyweight Champion and absolute dickbrained, cocaine-snorting, steroid cheating, hit-and-run-incident driving sun of a gun Jon Jones used the same technique to great effect in the dirty-boxing exchanges with hulking great brute of a man Glover Teixeira.
He did this all five rounds. Fucking OUCH.
McGregor needs to be able to exploit these sorts of grappling advantages if he's going to win.
The second point is about elbows. Elbows, as well as clinching are illegal in boxing. Well, illegal to throw anyway. This is the most glaring aspect of Mayweather's game that I left out of my examination earlier. Now, stand in the Stonewall stance shown earlier; legs akimbo, shoulders in line, head tucked behind your left shoulder and your left arm tight across your body. Now lean back as if somebody is trying to put a bit of dog shit on a stick into your face. See how the point of your elbow raises up? Mayweather regularly presents the elbow in such a way when people are rushing in. It'd be illegal if he threw it up that way, but because what is actually happening is his opponent is running onto the point of his elbow, it's entirely legal and the responsibility of the victim to ensure it doesn't happen again. Let's have a look at it in action.
Can't believe the ref didn't dock a point for this one in particular. The aforementioned Kenny Bayless, ladies and gentlemen.
To a boxer, that's like being in a dentist's chair, but instead of him looking at your teeth like you expect, he turns around and rips a fart straight into your face. Disorientating, slightly painful, and against everything you know is good and true. McGregor's been elbowed before, many, many times, really fucking hard, by animals like Chad Mendes.
GADOOOOOOOOOOOOSH.
Gutted about not cutting this gif short enough and it showing McGregor pushing Mendes off as if he didn't give a fuck. Bollocks to making it again though.
With all this in mind though, this hinges McGregor's chances on two such small glimmers of hope in a match that so overwhelmingly favours Mayweather that I've pretty much wasted the last 5 hours of my life to painstakingly write them down. I don't really care that much though, because I'd have probably only had a wank and eaten stuff out of the fridge instead. This fight has made me so cynical, and yet, I'm so excited for it that I can barely contain myself. I know McGregor can't win, but the fact that he has absolutely nothing to lose this weekend (he either loses to the greatest boxer alive today and says "in a 'real' fight you're fucking dead pal" or wins, either way he goes home counting fucking STACKS), and that I've doubted him in the past so much, means that I absolutely refuse to count him out. Plus, how fucking good was that left hand on Paulie Malignaggi in sparring? I know Paulie was out of shape and unprepared (having literally arrived at the gym after a 12 hour flight and being told "lace up your gloves and boots, son, you're going 12 rounds).
WHOMPF AND THE SWEAT FLIES OFF HIS HEAD HOLY SHIT
As for Mayweather, a loss here is the ruination of a 21 year, 49 fight unbeaten legacy to a man whose last boxing match was in a working men's club as an amateur. It also would probably be the death knell for a sport that has been struggling in the US for years. Boxing pay-per-view sales are at a worryingly low level, especially due to the still staggering amounts of money star fighters are being paid. Take Mayweather's last fight against Andre Berto as an example. Mayweather is the biggest name in boxing and he drew between 400k and 550k buys. In contrast, McGregor's last fight against Alvarez received 1.3million. That's an insane difference, and regular UFC cards outperform even the most special of boxing events. UFC 203, for example, a wholly unremarkable PPV held just weeks after the UFC's most successful PPV event of all time fetched 475k buys, whereas Andre Ward vs Sergei Kovalev 2, one of the most hotly anticipated rematches to one of the best fights of the last 10 years made only 125k buys. This is irrelevant pretty much everywhere in the world; boxing towers over MMA in nearly every other significant market outside of the US, except maybe Japan and Brazil. The US will always be its home, however, and losing the battle there is hurting. There's almost no chance it happens, though, but if you're Floyd, if you're Showtime Promotions, why the hell would you take that size a risk for such short term financial gain? Then again, here I am writing a blog about it, on a page I haven't opened since 2014, so who's more the fool, eh?
In conclusion, then;
- Mayweather is really good at boxing
- McGregor is really good at MMA
- Mayweather is pretty much guaranteed to win, with everything stacked in his favour
- McGregor needs to expoit every single rule-bend and opportunity he's allowed
- Beyond maybe, the fourth round(?) McGregor has pretty much no chance
- Despite all this, I think Conor has a voodoo curse on me and this will all be wrong.
- For the best odds, put your money on Mayweather by decision.
I really enjoyed researching and writing this, and I'd love to do more again. If you liked it, that's great, if you didn't, I don't care.
For the sources for my gifs, I mainly have to give credit to the amazing, unrivalled king of combat sports journalism, Jack Slack. Check out his Fight Primer here and his Patreon here and see what I've plagiarised where I got my inspiration, and sincere thanks to him for slickly editing together footage so I didn't have to look all that hard, saved a fuckload of time.
Now I can't wait for this fight to be over so the world can go back to normal.
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