Quotes made by Conor McGregor after he lost abysmally to Floyd Mayweather in 2017 have not aged well in the five years since.
On the back of McGregor’s defeat by Khabib and being slept by Dustin Poirier in the past few years, his post-fight Mayweather waffle took on a new life.
Looking at the 2017 interview, McGregor thought he was in the fight despite being dominated once Mayweather decided to work himself into the contest.
Mayweather gave McGregor four rounds to find his feet and could have quickly jumped on him from the off.
Seemingly not to disappoint the paying fans, who forked out $99.95 on Pay Per View and far more in the arena, Mayweather eventually began to engage and beat-up McGregor for six rounds.
Ending it in the tenth, anyone with two working eyeballs and a little knowledge of combat knew it was a completely one-sided contest.
As Mayweather fully intended, he then gassed out McGregor after four rounds of pressure despite allowing his foe to win the contest’s first three rounds.
Mayweather didn’t throw a punch for those initial sessions.
Floyd’s controversial ploy to allow McGregor the early stages before waiting for him to tire – worked perfectly. It left ‘The Notorious’ to wonder what might have been with improved boxing stamina.
An unfathomable notion from the Irishman that this was his only problem.
He said: “(I’m) Just coming back around after a whirlwind couple of days.
“I had a fantastic team, and It truly was an amazing and enjoyable camp. Honestly, I feel with just a little change in certain areas of the prep. We could have built the engine for twelve full rounds under stress and got a better result on the night.
“Getting to twelve rounds alone in practice was always the challenge in this camp. We started slowly getting to the twelve and decreasing the stress in the rounds the closer it got to twelve.
“I think for the time we had, ten weeks in camp, it had to be done this way.
“If I began with a loaded twelve rounds under much stress, I would have only hit a brick wall and lost progress as a result and potentially not made the fight.
“A little more time, and we could have made the twelve cleanly while under more stress. We could have made it thru the later rounds in the actual fight.”
In the end, McGregor was just happy to go half an hour inside a boxing ring.
“I feel every decision we made at each given time was the correct decision. I am proud of every one of my team for what we have done in the short time we have done it.
“Thirty minutes was the longest I have fought in a ring or cage or anywhere, surpassing my previous time of 25 minutes.
“I am happy for the experience and happy to take all these great lessons with me and implement them into my camp going forward. Another day, another lesson!”
FLOYD MAYWEATHER
When taking his hat off to Floyd Mayweather, McGregor said: “Congrats to Floyd Mayweather on a well-fought match.
“He’s very experienced and methodical in his work. I wish him well in retirement. He is a heck of a boxer.
“His experience, patience, and endurance won him this fight, hands down. I always told him he was not a fighter but a boxer. But sharing the ring with him, he is undoubtedly a solid fighter.
“Strong in the clinch, great understanding of frames and head position. He has some powerful tools he could bring into an MMA game for sure.”
Make of that what you will. Conor McGregor certainly has another career in comedy if he so chooses it.
The amount of money earned in the event undoubtedly took the edge off his performance.
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