Everyone and their mothers have an opinion on how well Conor McGregor will fare against Floyd Mayweather.
Due to the unusual nature of the match-up, it’s difficult to argue against anyone’s prediction for the Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather boxing match.
On paper, the undefeated prize pugilist should whoop the man making his professional debut. Mayweather has already beaten some of the best boxers on the planet with ease, so it’s conceivable that a man with zero experience in boxing at this level would be overwhelmed by his brilliance.
Those who are thinking outside the box(ing ring) can envisage McGregor having more than just a puncher’s chance against Mayweather. Aside from having size and youth on his side, ‘The Notorious’ has what could be perceived as an advantage of being an elite fighter who isn’t a boxer. As 49 bested boxers can attest to, you’re not going to defeat ‘Money’  by outboxing him.
He likes the lighter guys nowadays https://t.co/gfik7l20F2
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) August 13, 2017
It has mostly been MMA personalities saying it, but there is a theory out there that the key to victory for McGregor is by using an unorthodox striking style that would probably be deemed as ‘poor technique’ in boxing circles.
Brendan Schaub has continuously alluded to this concept with his ‘awkward style’ sound bites and everyone who’s mentioned that McGregor needs to ‘fight dirty’ is pretty much saying the same thing.
Famed MMA analyst Robin Black has also been pushing that idea for a long time, and once those sparring clips of Paulie Malignaggi dropped, he felt vindicated, as he explained on his YouTube channel.
“Floyd Mayweather and all other boxers of the top level are extremely specialised, and in doing so, they become more and more hyper-specialised, so there’s all this other stuff that could happen outside of their specialisation that they’re unfamiliar with, and that’s how you try to beat them.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXrdc2Ygo-H/?hl=en&taken-by=danawhite
Black realises that the footage released was selected by McGregor’s team and was therefore expected to be part of the session where he had the most success, but it’s undeniable that the two moments shared by Dana White actually happened. McGregor looked extremely good in the snippets and, as Black pointed out, it’s because he was ‘doing it wrong’.
“There’s a lot of ‘rules’ in boxing including, don’t overextend, put the ball of your backfoot solidly on the ground, don’t pop up and weight onto your front foot with your back foot light – that’s ‘wrong’. Because that was ‘wrong’ people haven’t done it.
“Because people haven’t done it, your sparring partners don’t do it and because your sparring partners don’t do it, you’re unfamiliar with it. That’s why Paulie got cracked so cleanly with such a ‘simple’ straight left from so far out. Nobody throws at straight left like that.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXrdz9qAL4M/?hl=en&taken-by=danawhite
If you want to check out Black’s full initial breakdown of the footage, we highly recommend you do in the video embedded below.
