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According to UFC president Dana White, the fight will be at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and will be contested at 154 pounds. It will be a standard, 12-round boxing match with 10-ounce gloves. Conor McGregor has gone from making $16k in first UFC fight to winning 2 titles to getting a fight booked with Floyd Mayweather, in just 4 years.
It’s actually happening– on August 26th in Vegas, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor will square off in a boxing match.
The superfight that has been speculated over for the past two years has been appropriately donned, “The Money Fight.”
Mayweather (49-0-0), the five-division world champion boasting fifteen world titles, with dominant victories over some of boxing’s finest talents including Miguel Cotto, Canelo Alvarez, and Manny Pacquiao, comes out of retirement looking to tally on the 50th win of his exceptional career. Amidst boxing’s never-ending ‘GOAT’ debate, the 40 year-old Mayweather is an undeniable candidate. He was named the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of the last 25 years by ESPN, and was BoxRec’s number 1 fighter and greatest welterweight of all time.
McGregor (21-3-0), has quickly become the star of the UFC. The Irish-born phenom is the first ever UFC fighter to make Forbe’s list of the world’s highest paid athletes, and believes he will also be the man to hand Floyd Mayweather the first loss of his professional career. The 28 year-old Irishman, an eccentric and boisterous personality who may be the best trash-talker in sports, is a highly entertaining celebrity both in and out of the octagon.
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McGregor is an extremely skilled athlete who started boxing at age 12 and later transitioned to Mixed Martial Arts after becoming an All-Ireland youth boxing champion. He’s an excellent striker and frequently wields devastating high-flying leg kicks, but his kicks and other MMA-based skills will have no place in the ring against Floyd. Aspects of the fight including the weight difference and style of the gloves– McGregor transitioning from using 4 ounce MMA gloves to 10 ounce boxing gloves– is only one of the many qualities that make boxing and MMA so different. The fight contract is specifically designed for a boxing bout, and although McGregor is an extremely talented fighter, many hardcore fight fans, boxing and MMA fans alike, aren’t giving Conor much of a chance against Floyd.
To say the very least, this cross-sport fight is controversial.
Many believe the fight is a joke– merely a set-up cash grab tailored by two extremely rich men looking to get richer. Floyd Mayweather, the probable best pound-for-pound fighter of all time, is coming out of retirement to fight a young UFC star who has 0 rounds as a professional boxer? Not knockout artist GGG? Not even a re-match with Pacquiao or rising star Canelo Alvarez? If Conor can get outclassed by former IBO welterweight champ Chris van Heerden in a sparring session, how can he even think he’d beat an all time great like Floyd? No disrespect to Conor– he’s definitely determined and committed enough to have greatly improved since the 2016 sparring session, but it’s hard to say if it will be enough to overcome the speed, finesse, and experience of Floyd Mayweather.
Regardless of McGregor’s lack of professional boxing experience, this is a superfight that pits two of the world’s greatest living fighters against each other– there are no belts on the line, it’s all for the fans.
