?A fight between Mayweather Jr. and McGregor is a fraud, it?s crap,? said Chavez Sr. ?This is a good business for the morbid??
Now that Floyd Mayweather has officially unretired, the only surprise being that it took so long, he can finally fight Conor McGregor.
?I?m coming out of retirement, just to fight Conor McGregor,? said Mayweather. ?I don?t want to hear no more excuses about the money, about the UFC. Sign the paperwork with the UFC so you can fight me in June.?
McGregor is not a boxer, having never boxed professionally in his life. But why quibble? He?s got a name, at least in MMA circles, and while it?s liable to be a one-sided freak show, it will be a one-sided freak show that turns a tidy profit, which is all that matters.
Mayweather, however, has grown tired of the delays.
?You?re the B side, I?m the A side,? he said. ?We?re not here to cry about money. I?m tired of all this crying about money and talking about you want to fight. You blowing smoke up everybody?s ass. If you want to fight, sign the paperwork. Let?s do it.?
As eager as Mayweather appears to be to want to fight McGregor, enthusiasm in some quarters is muted. Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., for one, is as interested in this fight as he is interested in watching someone pull the wings off a fly.
?A fight between Mayweather Jr. and McGregor is a fraud, it?s crap,? he said. ?This is a good business for the morbid. McGregor has no chance against Mayweather Jr. I can assure you that at my age of 54 years, and in my current physical state, and without having trained enough?I am able to defeat the UFC star.?
One of the fight?s boosters in Roy Jones Jr. He can still talk with the best of them, but reasoning may be beyond his ken.
?To me, the MMA guys are good, they are great guys, but what it boils down to is a jack of all trades versus the master of one,? Jones told On The Ropes Boxing Radio. ?Usually the jack of all traders is not supposed to beat the master of one. I can?t really see how McGregor beats the master of one. He is a guy who tries hard and is going to come out and give it his best effort, but it?s very hard for a jack of all trades to beat the master of one at that one particular trait.?
No argument there. Maybe Roy should have stopped while he was ahead.
?How can it possibly hurt boxing unless Conor got lucky and knocked Floyd Mayweather out?? he continued. ?How else could that possibly hurt boxing? It?s going to bring even more attention to boxing than him fighting another boxer. It?s going to bring more revenue to boxing and MMA than anything else, so how can that possibly hurt boxing??
How can it possibly hurt boxing?
Let me count the ways.
Boxing is already held in low esteem by most of the sporting public. The reasons for that are many, but the sport has lost credibility in the minds of many and a fight with Conor McGregor will reduce its credibility further.
No one expects Mayweather to care. He?s riding high and will be riding high in the foreseeable future. But the retreating fan base, that admittedly knows little about the sport, will retreat even more if he and McGregor fight in June.
?I think most people have gotten over [the 2015 fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao] and I think that?s why they?re talking so much about the McGregor fight because they are looking at what?s next,? continued Jones. ?What?s next on the list of great things that Floyd Mayweather has brought to boxing is Conor McGregor. It?s a big time event, it?s an event that will draw major revenue, and that?s what boxing is supposed to be about, so that has to be what?s next.?
Who knows? The fight might even start a crossover trend. And no one will be any the wiser, especially now that they have ?gotten over? the Mayweather-Pacquiao fiasco.
