Does UFC = Fakery?

[thadude]

That was ugly guys.  Mayweather was 12 years older and 10 lbs lighter

[HessStation]

How do you not undstand the difference between the two sports? Mcgregor surprised me and did better than I expected. Props to him.

 

[bealeb319]

Wow this can't be serious. Mcggregor the UFC fighter who has been professionally fighting in the UFC for what 4 or 5 years lost a boxing match to a guy who literally dedicated his entire life to the sport of boxing. Did you honestly not see that coming? If it were a UFC fight mcggregor would have killed mayweather but boxing is about more than just overpowering your opponent into submission

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[rillo]

Fight definitely look staged. Glad I didn't pay for it.

[RutgersJetFan]

That fight was incredible considering the expectations, especially given the circumstances. Fair play to Conor. That dude has some serious heart. Haven't seen Floyd walk someone down like that since the Zab and Corrales days. 

A bit of an early stoppage but nothing crazy. Lotta ring deaths in fighting the past year, refs are best off playing it safe. From the ref's perspective he is responsible for the lives of both fighters, KO was inevitable at that point, and a guy can't take punches to the head like that and not respond at all. 

[RutgersJetFan]

7 hours ago, HessStation said:

How do you not undstand the difference between the two sports? Mcgregor surprised me and did better than I expected. Props to him.

 

I'd like to see some of the other more boxing centric guys in MMA, like Stipe or Cody, and Masvidal, give it a go. That was a fun event to watch. 

[JohnJ]

40 minutes ago, rillo said:

Fight definitely look staged. Glad I didn't pay for it.

Follow the money...Ali/Aoki 2.0

[ZachEY]

On 8/27/2017 at 2:10 PM, RutgersJetFan said:

That fight was incredible considering the expectations, especially given the circumstances. Fair play to Conor. That dude has some serious heart. Haven't seen Floyd walk someone down like that since the Zab and Corrales days. 

A bit of an early stoppage but nothing crazy. Lotta ring deaths in fighting the past year, refs are best off playing it safe. From the ref's perspective he is responsible for the lives of both fighters, KO was inevitable at that point, and a guy can't take punches to the head like that and not respond at all. 

I feel like Floyd deserves a ton of credit for his gameplan and sticking to it.  Seemed like his only fear was taking a big shot, which he did once to the body.  But, ultimately, he knew Macgregor would punch himself out and couldn't fight 12 rounds, so rather than trying to humiliate him, he just let the whole fight play out.  So, my question is, do you think Conor's size is what made this fight look, in part, more competitive than it was?  Had they been more evenly matched physically, Floyd could have just beat quickly, I'd think.  In the middle of the fight, I left feeling like if you put a solid, but not special, boxer in there and had a more even match-up by the numbers, Conor would have been beaten easily.  Thoughts?

[RutgersJetFan]

39 minutes ago, gEYno said:

I feel like Floyd deserves a ton of credit for his gameplan and sticking to it.  Seemed like his only fear was taking a big shot, which he did once to the body.  But, ultimately, he knew Macgregor would punch himself out and couldn't fight 12 rounds, so rather than trying to humiliate him, he just let the whole fight play out.  So, my question is, do you think Conor's size is what made this fight look, in part, more competitive than it was?  Had they been more evenly matched physically, Floyd could have just beat quickly, I'd think.  In the middle of the fight, I left feeling like if you put a solid, but not special, boxer in there and had a more even match-up by the numbers, Conor would have been beaten easily.  Thoughts?

This is a theory I've seen around the internet a bunch the past few days and my personal opinion is no, for a few reasons:

1. Floyd's fight history is littered with similar scenarios, where the appearance of opponents giving him trouble in the first few rounds pops up (De La Hoya, Mosley, Augustus, Castillo, Maidana...etc), and then Floyd starts picking things up somewhere between the 3rd and 5th depending on how many rounds he has dropped. Floyd could certainly come out swinging, but his career is built off of starting soft, computing, gaging distance and timing for his jab and straight right counter.

2. Way more than his size, Conor's stance made the difference. It was insanely weird and would have been hard for anyone to deal with, be it Floyd or Willie Pep. Something like that takes more than a round to figure out, and a fighter can't get cocky with that aspect because of the risk of getting caught. Conor has always had that karate stance in MMA and the thinking was he'd have to switch things up for boxing, and he didn't. That definitely took some time to deal with. His stance is also why I think the judges had the scoring all wacky, probably determining that there was no way that stuff could have been effective.

3. Heavily disagree that Conor would have been beaten easily by another boxer. That guy is just a great fighter all around and I am officially done doubting him. I always had Floyd winning this fight no doubt, and probably by KO, but the reason I was in love with this matchup is because boxing has diverged over the past 20 years, with traditional boxing going one route and boxing for MMA going another. For the latter, the stance, hands, and angles are all different because of having to defend against kicks, throws, and shoots. There is nobody in MMA that has mastered this style better than Conor, and while his ground game is no joke his boxing movement in the octagon has been all-time, he's won two belts strictly off nothing but that and a great takedown defense. He didn't have nearly as hard a time as I thought he would translating that over and as a person who follows all styles of fighting more than anything in life (probably even more than my career) it was really fun to see the pinnacle of that style match up against a slick traditionalist. The former proved that it can definitely hold its own.

[RutgersJetFan]

Also an addendum to that: What is definitely possible is that Floyd waited Conor out because he knew Conor would gas out, as he usually does. One thing about Conor is his career is built off athleticism and explosiveness which is so draining, which is why you saw him tire out so much in both Diaz fights. But for this fight, I don't know. It seems like the main endurance work Conor does is cycling, and for boxing you have to run. And you have to run a lot. Championship boxers run anywhere from 5-10 miles a day training for a fight. Tyson used to run 5 miles at 5 am every single day. Bradley does something like 8 miles every single day. Floyd has claimed 10 a day in the past. MMA is different because you have to train for several different forms of cardio (i.e. grappling cardio, which is a totally different animal), but for boxing you really need to run to prep your body for that grind. Nothing else except endurance running works in that regard.

Not saying that's what happened, but it's certainly a possibility. It's definitely clear that the reason Floyd started walking him down at the end was because he knew Conor was tired and he would have nothing on those punches. Don't know if that was always the game plan or not though.

[Maxman]

1 hour ago, gEYno said:

I feel like Floyd deserves a ton of credit for his gameplan and sticking to it.  Seemed like his only fear was taking a big shot, which he did once to the body.  But, ultimately, he knew Macgregor would punch himself out and couldn't fight 12 rounds, so rather than trying to humiliate him, he just let the whole fight play out.  So, my question is, do you think Conor's size is what made this fight look, in part, more competitive than it was?  Had they been more evenly matched physically, Floyd could have just beat quickly, I'd think.  In the middle of the fight, I left feeling like if you put a solid, but not special, boxer in there and had a more even match-up by the numbers, Conor would have been beaten easily.  Thoughts?

He took a pretty big upper cut early as well.

[ZachEY]

3 minutes ago, RutgersJetFan said:

Also an addendum to that: What is definitely possible is that Floyd waited Conor out because he knew Conor would gas out, as he usually does. One thing about Conor is his career is built off athleticism and explosiveness which is so draining, which is why you saw him tire out so much in both Diaz fights. But for this fight, I don't know. It seems like the main endurance work Conor does is cycling, and for boxing you have to run. And you have to run a lot. Championship boxers run anywhere from 5-10 miles a day training for a fight. Tyson used to run 5 miles at 5 am every single day. Bradley does something like 8 miles every single day. Floyd has claimed 10 a day in the past. MMA is different because you have to train for several different forms of cardio (i.e. grappling cardio, which is a totally different animal), but for boxing you really need to run to prep your body for that grind. Nothing else except endurance running works in that regard.

Not saying that's what happened, but it's certainly a possibility. It's definitely clear that the reason Floyd started walking him down at the end was because he knew Conor was tired and he would have nothing on those punches. Don't know if that was always the game plan or not though.

It was my thought that this was the strategy all along.  And that's why it was also my thought that a more physically matched fighter may not have fought in Floyd's style, and I think would probably have had an easier time.  My knowledge on this is so limited, but it just seemed like if you put a decent power punching boxer across from Conor, he would have looked worse.  And, honestly, from what I know about Floyd and the way he works, he was seemingly in control the whole time, even when Macgregor was winning rounds.

[ZachEY]

Just now, Maxman said:

He took a pretty big upper cut early as well.

I remember, but didn't think that one connected quite as solidly???  That's what I was kind of talking with my friend about, that even Macgregor's big shots weren't landing that cleanly.  Which, of course, is more a testament to Floyd than anything else.

[RutgersJetFan]

12 minutes ago, gEYno said:

It was my thought that this was the strategy all along.  And that's why it was also my thought that a more physically matched fighter may not have fought in Floyd's style, and I think would probably have had an easier time.  My knowledge on this is so limited, but it just seemed like if you put a decent power punching boxer across from Conor, he would have looked worse.  And, honestly, from what I know about Floyd and the way he works, he was seemingly in control the whole time, even when Macgregor was winning rounds.

Hard to say, styles and matchups always determine what guys do or don't do in both sports. I don't think Conor could sniff someone like Canelo but I do think that if he trained for just boxing he would be capable of competing at a very high level in the very near future. That said I hope he doesn't do that, he's a joy to watch in MMA and I'm kind of tired of some of the divisions getting held up because him and Bisping get special treatment. 

[RutgersJetFan]

15 minutes ago, gEYno said:

I remember, but didn't think that one connected quite as solidly???  That's what I was kind of talking with my friend about, that even Macgregor's big shots weren't landing that cleanly.  Which, of course, is more a testament to Floyd than anything else.

Looked pretty clean to me. Floyd has a good chin, always has. 

[Fantasy Island]

It was just as legit as the Paqiuao fight.  Connor and Floyd probably went out to the club and made it rain after the fight.  Floyd fought to pay his taxes and Connor fought to get a big payday and get out of the fight game.