Floyd Mayweather said Saturday’s fight against McGregor wouldn’t go the distance, Mayweather did not mean it would be because McGregor would somehow knock him out and score perhaps the biggest upset in sports history.
Mayweather, a supreme counterpuncher, said he will be aggressive and go forward even though McGregor’s trainer, John Kavanagh has said he was skeptical.
“We’ll see. We’ll see. At the end of the day you will see the results,” Mayweather said. “This fight won’t go the distance. Remember that, no matter what his coach say. His coach can’t fight for him. When it comes down to it, it comes down to the two fighters. I just said what I said [about winning by knockout]. This is how I feel.
It may come to a surprise to some that Mayweather is guaranteeing he will knock out Conor McGregor, the UFC star crossing over to boxing for a huge money fight when they meet on Saturday (Showtime PPV, 9 p.m. ET) at the T-Mobile Arena.
“One hundred percent chance this fight won’t go the distance.” He said
Mayweather’s greatest skill is on defense, where he is supremely difficult to hit with a clean punch. And while he often makes his opponents pay by landing his own assortment of shots, one thing he is not is a knockout artist.
In fact, Mayweather has not knocked out an opponent since his somewhat controversial fourth-round stoppage of Victor Ortiz in September 2011. In that fight, Mayweather reclaimed a welterweight world title when he nailed Ortiz — after Ortiz dropped his hands and was looking at the referee, who had broken them from a clinch
Prior to that KO, Mayweather’s previous stoppage — a no-doubt-about-it one with no controversy — came when he blasted Ricky Hatton in the 11th round of a 2007 welterweight world title defense.
In all, Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) has stopped two opponents in his past 11 bouts.
