The on again, off again fight of the century is finally upon us! After months and months of negotiations followed by a lengthy press tour, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor will finally square off this Sunday afternoon from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and we have our Mayweather vs McGregor betting tips right here!
The fight is scheduled to kick off around 2pm and can be purchased to watch on the Main Event channel through Foxtel. While Floyd has opened as the heavy favourite to win the fight, we still think there is plenty of value to be had and we preview the fight and give our betting tips below.
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To say that a McGregor victory would be a massive upset is an understatement. The Irishman comes into the fight with little to no experience in the boxing ring, however, his boxing coach Owen Roddy claims that he has no doubt the UFC star will win the fight.
“I have no doubt in my mind he’s gonna do it, I think it's gonna be one of the most insane nights ever.”
Roddy’s opinion contrasts that of nearly every former professional boxer and analyst going around, who thinks that McGregor has absolutely no chance of knocking out Mayweather, let alone winning in a decision against the 49-0 boxer.
Mayweather has never been knocked out or even knocked down in his 49 professional boxing fights so to think a UFC convert could do so gives credence to the expert’s opinions on the fight. While he is one of the better knockout artists in the UFC, McGregor will be wearing 8-ounce gloves for this fight instead of the standard 4-ounce ones he wears in the octagon, so that could hinder his power slightly. The original plan was to use 10-ounce gloves according to Nevada commission regulations, but both fighters recently agreed to switch to 8-ounce gloves. That could be seen to favour the heavier punching of McGregor until you realise that Mayweather has fought with 8-ounce gloves in 45 of his 49 professional fights, and described the 10-ounce gloves as fighting with "pillows".
The one area where McGregor has an advantage is weight, at least the appearance of it. McGregor has proven that he can go up divisions and fight heavier guys, and it’s well known that while he generally hovers around the featherweight mark, he punches with the power of a middleweight, something that Floyd might not have faced before.
There’s also the fact that Mayweather hasn’t fought in nearly two years, and is now 40 years of age. All these factors go against Mayweather but at the end of the day McGregor is stepping into Mayweather’s world for this fight and no amount of training can prepare you to fight the greatest pound-for-pound boxer of all time.
Former MMA fighter John Kavanagh had a really interesting take on the fight. He thinks that if Mayweather does indeed fight the way he has been describing he will, that is to be the aggressor and look to dominate McGregor from the start, he will be knocked out in a minute.
“If he doesn’t take a back step, and we’ll all see it — we’ll all see their feet, we’ll all see who walks backwards — if he walks forward and exchanges, it’ll be a one-round fight. It’ll be over in a minute. Because he’d be fighting in such a way that’s not normal to him, he won’t have had time to develop the skillset for an aggressive exchanging fighter. Like I said, I didn’t know a lot about Floyd before this, but I did watch his fights for his defensive work. So for him to go in there and try to trade with Conor and not walk backwards, would be so alien to him but so normal for Conor — that’s exactly what Conor’s the best at — he’ll be unconscious in a minute,” said Kavanagh.
It's likely that Kavanagh's thinking is correct. Rather than try to exchange blows with his opponent, Mayweather is going to look to be very defensive early as he always is. He'll duck and weave and run to avoid the initial onslaught from McGregor. If the Irishman can't land that knockout blow inside the first 4-6 rounds, then there are concerns for McGregor’s stamina to last a full 12 rounds. Mayweather can then take advantage in the later rounds to throw his quick jabs to score effectively.
If it goes the distance, then Mayweather wins this fight (barring stupid boxing controversy). There's little value on him to win, but you can find some more value by taking Mayweather to win by decision.
However this whole fight is really just a massive promotional circus, and boxing will always throw up a surprise or two. We are seeing a fighter step into the boxing ring for the first time against someone who hasn’t boxed in two years. Let’s take this for what it is and look for the value in the fight which is Conor McGregor to land a knockout punch that will be heard all around the world.
