1st, yes Mayweather absolutely is a slow starter. Well not even specifically just that, but Mayweather is known to take rounds off in the hopes of preserving himself later in the fight. He doesn't want to lose the rounds, and maintains control of the fight, but commonly this narrows the gap for his opponents. McGregor wanted to take advantage of this, land a lot and try to work Mayweather down over this distance. It was his best hope of landing a big shot.
2nd, Mayweather doesn't fight offensive "anymore" is more what you meant to say. But when was the last time you saw someone land on Mayweather and get out? Because of the range McGregor fights at, he was able to sink in small shots on Mayweather and get out of there before the counter was landed. Mayweather was missing, Conor was landing. So Mayweather put all the pieces together as the master boxer he is, and decided that the best way to further take Conor's gas tank whilst also taking away every single solid asset Conor had was to walk through his shots and push him back. I did a big post before the fight somewhere about how Conor could ONLY beat Mayweather because Mayweather likely wouldn't utilize tonnes of aspects of the game someone like Canelo would because he's not fighting offensively at all. When he did, it took away the new angles and ranges that Conor was having success with. It was an adjustment. Mayweather wasn't in trouble because he made the adjustment correctly and at the perfect time, but it's not to say he wanted to lost 4 rounds.
3rd, Mayweather said this in every fight he's had. It sells tickets. I believe it was an in ring adjustment and he was going to do his tried and tested boring style had it been as easy.
He did better than those guys because stylistically he brought more aspects to the game. He would absolutely die against those guys, but when you're fighting a guy mostly focusing on defence, it gave Conor some opportunities to show what he can do as opposed to how he'd do absolutely nothing when a guy like Khan would be landing shots on his face way too frequently for him to get anything off. He's not a better fighter, but he had a better fight.
Mayweather smirked? A fighter, smiling, in a fight? Wow, that's new and never done before. Conor also put his hands behind his back. They both felt confident at specific moments.
Conor barely landed a glove past 2? Not true, but regardless, Canelo, Pacquiao, Maidana etc. barely landed a glove past seconds out round one.
GGG would have killed him sure.
The sad thing is, like with Jose Aldo, Nate Diaz etc. people like you who hold something random against McGregor decide that his opponents should be insulted. "brittle fisted, retired 40 year old". Or...you know...greatest of all time potentially.
And there's the noodle arm video. Oh Conor's so shit. You know, besides the fact that literally every single fighter in the entirity of boxing, including GGG and Canelo, wouldn't last one minute in an unrestricted fight with Conor. The saddest thing of all of this are boxing fans or boxers like Paulie saying shit about Conor being a bitch, when they'd never EVER enter the octagon. Hell the only guy who gave respect to Conor the whole way through, Berto, is the only one considering it.
|