The immovable object
Any form of combat sport is a game of inches. And Floyd Mayweather Jr. has constructed a career out of inching his nose in front when it matters the most in a fight.
His blemish-free record in boxing didn’t take shape because he stood toe-to-toe with his opponents and banged it out until one man fell away. It is, instead, the result of cerebral game planning and the ability to fight on his terms. He would duck and dodge, bob and weave, pivot and glide away...he would masterfully skirt the battle but – inevitably – win the fight. Sometimes barely. Many times soundly. But he would always get the job done.
By 2015, after spending nearly 20 years in professional boxing, 47 fighters had tried to beat him. Many took the fight to him. Some even troubled him. But all of them, ultimately, failed.
Manny Pacquiao, however, was earmarked as the one boxer with the requisite skill set and sufficient offensive output to blitz past Floyd's defences finally.
His style of boxing was a treat to watch, cutting angles rapidly and overwhelming opponents with both power and volume in equal measure. And he was a southpaw – the one perceived weakness in Floyd’s otherwise impenetrable style of fighting. Historically, Floyd Mayweather Jr. had always run into trouble against southpaws.
In 2006, Zab Judah had tormented him repeatedly with that straight left hand that came out of nowhere. Manny Pacquiao, many hoped, would run him over with it.
Even on paper, he was the perfect antithesis to Floyd Mayweather Jr; A rags-to-riches story who didn’t forget where he came from, against a hubristic athlete only too happy to rub his wealth all over your face. An altruistic politician eager to uplift the people in his home country of Philippines, against a selfish businessman, who’d much rather burn a wad of hundred dollar bills to make a point, than distribute it among the less privileged.
A dynamic southpaw who took on all comers against a calculated surgeon, who was almost as picky with his opponents as he was with his punches. One then truly begins to understand why, for many people, their clash was also of ‘good’ against ‘evil’.
The ubiquitous question on everyone’s mind, however, was whether Manny Pacquiao would be the man to finally get ‘good’ on the scoreboard. Floyd had racked up 47 fights and 47 victories to his name. And it was high time the law of averages struck back.
Also read: 5 things that can happen when Floyd Mayweather fights Conor McGregor
Unfortunately for Pacquiao, fights don’t happen in theory.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. ducked and dodged, bobbed and weaved, pivoted and glided away... he masterfully skirted the battle yet again. Inevitably, he won yet again.
48-0.
Mayweather’s record-equalling 49th victory was against Andre Berto later that year, a solid but unremarkable fighter that nobody really gave a chance to. Of course, by that time, everyone had given up hope that Mayweather would lose and were instead busy trying to reconcile with the fact that he may be, as his moniker proclaims, The Best Ever.
And then, at 49-0 – having sculpted the greatest unblemished record in boxing – Floyd Mayweather Jr. retired. He had cleaned out the competition. There were no more poster boys left for fans to pin their hopes on. Till the end, it would seem, there would be no white knight in shining armour to slay the dragon after all. Floyd Mayweather Jr would retire undefeated and peerless, like a fairytale gone horribly wrong.
Little did the world know then, that he would only stay that way for two more years...
The irresistible force
Not five years ago, Conor McGregor was living off social welfare in Ireland.
It is a detail oft repeated in an attempt to paint his meteoric rise into perspective, but the truth is that his ascent to superstardom isn’t something that can be carelessly explained away by a throwaway fact like that.
To progress from $60,000 being the biggest payday of your life to over $60 Million for a day’s work, in a physically debilitating sport no less, is achievement enough. That he did it while bearing the ruthless scrutiny of the world’s eye on him every step of the way only makes it all the more improbable...and all of it, within a span of just five goddamn years?
Conor McGregor’s rise isn’t something that can be put into perspective because, quite simply, it’s not something that we’d ever relate to. To the common man who lives within the boundaries of what society makes possible for him, it is almost forbidden to dream of uncharted success like McGregor’s.
And yet, that is exactly what the Irishman did.
“This is what I dreamed into reality. ” – Conor McGregor
Fresh from knocking Eddie Alvarez out and claiming his second UFC Championship in December of 2016, Conor McGregor – with each shoulder adorned by 12 pounds of glittering gold – told Joe Rogan in the post-fight Octagon interview that he had literally dreamt that moment into reality.
On the surface of it all, it sounds like nothing more than a pretty sound bite, an empty quote for the cameras. A politically correct how-to guide that overachievers and public personalities are almost obliged to patronise their fans with. Except, around six years back, a pimply youngster from Ireland with a steely glint in his eye had predicted that he would one day be in that same, exact position.
That youngster couldn’t answer what many would have considered a fairly straightforward question from the interviewer about how a full-time fighting career was different from a 9 am to 5 pm desk job. But he was dead certain, even then, that he would one day swim with the sharks in the UFC.
It is that tryst with destiny Conor McGregor seems to enjoy, that has drawn fans to him the world over like moths to a flame. It isn’t just that a plumber’s apprentice went on to conquer the sport of MMA that makes his story enrapturing. It isn’t just his balls-out, kill-or-be-killed fighting style that endears him to the audience.
It’s the fact that somehow, inexplicably Conor McGregor calls his shots and then proceeds to knock them dead with that vaunted left hand of his.
Diego Brandao, Dustin Poirier and Jose Aldo – the former kingpin of the Featherweight division – were all cleaned up within the first round. Eddie Alvarez and Chad Mendes were packed up within the second. Nate Diaz was taken the full distance and outlasted in their UFC 202 rematch. And Conor McGregor had predicted the outcome of each and every one of those fights accurately.
That he erred (greatly, I might add) in his prediction for the first Diaz fight – forecasting a first round victory only to be choked out himself in Round 2 – only served to make him more relatable. Finally, it was gratifying to know that he did have a slip-up in him, that he wasn’t entirely able to wrap destiny around his little finger and yank it to do his bidding.
It was good to know that Conor McGregor was human, after all.
A date with destiny
After his record-breaking exploits against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, a climate of uncertainty descended upon Conor McGregor’s UFC career.
His own career trajectory up till that point suggested bigger and better things. But he had already outgrown the UFC’s ceiling. He was already the Two Weight World Champion.
Settling down at a weight class and defending the Title may be the hallmark of any other Champion but it almost seemed blasphemous to suggest that Conor McGregor does that too. In some ways, he had become a victim of his own exponential growth.
So what next for the buccaneering Irishman?
As the world mulled over that question, Conor McGregor would take a self-imposed hiatus from the sport to prepare himself for impending fatherhood.
It was then that the embers of a boxing super fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr would be stoked.
I’d like to think that for Mayweather, there wasn’t anything left to prove inside the ring. That his legacy was already set in stone. And beating a fighter with a 0-0 professional boxing record would hardly serve to augment that.
But beating an irrepressible personality, a bonafide international superstar, a fellow titan in self-promotion...now that was a prospect too financially rewarding to turn down.
Floyd Mayweather could have easily brushed away the Conor McGregor fight, and no one would have thought him any lesser for it. The fact that he didn’t, however, can only be explained by one reason really – money.
It was just an easy payday for him, against a man everyone knew wasn’t even in his league inside the boxing ring. That the sports of MMA and boxing shared a common baseline of hand-to-hand combat doesn’t really matter here. They are different disciplines entirely. Like cricket and baseball. Like American football and rugby. Like water polo and swimming. And it makes as much sense for a professional in any of these sports to compete in the other, as it does for Conor McGregor to challenge Floyd Mayweather to a boxing match.
Which – in case you were still wondering – is absolutely none.
And yet, when news filtered through in June this year that the deal was finalised after months of enduring many vague statements on TMZ from Floyd Mayweather, suggestive interviews from UFC supremo Dana White and brash public challenges from Conor McGregor, the excitement in the air was palpable.
Of course, the purists who believed that an MMA fighter had no business in a boxing ring baulked at the announcement, but for the most part, it was superseded by a sense of genuine intrigue and anticipation in the world of combat sports.
Logically speaking, no one who knows the first thing about either boxing or MMA is inclined to give Conor McGregor a legitimate chance in this fight. But almost everyone is keenly interested in watching it, all the same.
Perhaps for the first time in a boxing career spanning 20-odd years, then, the narrative surrounding the Mayweather-McGregor fight isn’t about whether this would finally be the time when Floyd Mayweather Jr. loses to another human being. We already know the answer to that.
No. This fight is all about Conor McGregor.
Will Conor McGregor land that crushing left straight on Floyd Mayweather’s dome? Will Conor McGregor’s unorthodox movement, ideally adapted for MMA, put off Floyd’s textbook boxing rhythm? Will Conor McGregor’s reach, size and strength advantage be able to bridge the gap in dexterity between them?
For the first time ever, it would seem, people want to watch a Floyd Mayweather fight not to see him lose, but to see his opponent win.
In essence, both those scenarios may be one and the same. But if you’re a fan of Conor McGregor, if you’ve been privy to his logic-dispelling growth, if you vicariously lived out your dreams through his reality, then you would know that they aren’t the same at all.
For if Floyd Mayweather finally loses on August 26th, it would just register as a magisterial boxer who slipped up at the final, improbable hurdle.
Conor McGregor’s victory, on the other hand, would be an affirmation that your destiny is indeed in your own hands.
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