Floyd Mayweather was wildly confident of beating Conor McGregor in their mega crossover bout, and outlined how he would do it beforehand.
The 154lbs pro boxing match captured enough attention to become the second highest ordered PPV fight – 4.3 million buys – in the history of the sport, only behind Mayweather’s welterweight fight with Manny Pacquiao.
Mayweather and McGregor sold it incredibly well, packing out arenas for the press conferences and creating enough hype to draw a $55 million gate in Las Vegas.
Despite the verbal back and forths being competitive, the fight was less so – and Mayweather knew as much when he signed for it.
Broadcaster Stephen A Smith recently told Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson about a conversation with the 50-0 pro.
“I was at Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather’s house right before he fought Conor McGregor. And I don’t consider that a boxing match because Conor McGregor wasn’t no damn boxer – UFC champion but no boxer. So it was an exhibition in my mind, but I still listened.
Floyd Mayweather looks me in my face and he says ‘I’m gonna take him out about the eighth or ninth round.’ And I said ‘your hand’s always broken, you ain’t known for your punching power since you moved up from lightweight to welterweight, why are you so sure?’
Smith went on to recount exactly what Mayweather said to him, showing the boxer’s incredible confidence that the crossover bout would be a walk in the park.
“‘Stephen A, he’s a UFC fighter, and he’s a striker. He’s accustomed to coming at you and throwing punches. What he’s not accustomed to doing is punching while he’s moving backwards and pushing you off of him.
I’m gonna walk right into him and stay on his chest. He’s gonna have to push me off in order to throw his punches, he’s gonna be circling the ring. By round four or five he’s not gonna have any legs. He’s gonna be done. And I’ll just toy with him and keep him around till round eight or nine.'”
Mayweather stopped a visibly exhausted McGregor in the tenth round of the contest – one later than his prediction. Prior to that, he never looked in any real danger, although McGregor did land early on, plenty of those shots being rabbit punches.
From the third, Mayweather did start to walk the MMA man down, dialling up the pressure steadily.
Both men earnt a reported nine figures from the event, and it set off a domino effect in the sport that has led to Tyson Fury’s recent announcement of a fight with former UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou.