Longtime boxing analyst Max Kellerman was of the opinion that Floyd Mayweather Jr. was so much better than UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor, that Conor wouldn’t be able to land a single punch on Floyd. Well that proved not to be the case, and Kellerman admitted that he was wrong on ESPN’s First Take.
“The big take away from me is, that was the best version of the fight it could have been,” Kellerman said. “I was wrong to say Conor wouldn’t land a punch – he landed several actual punches cleanly. He won a few rounds early when Floyd hadn’t started fighting yet, which is amazing to me. But ultimately he didn’t really have a chance to win the fight and Floyd won in the way he did partly because he is an older, flat-footed fighter now.”
Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs) defeated McGregor (0-1, 0 KOs) by 10th round TKO, in what is supposed to be the final fight of his hall-of-fame career. The 40-year-old has retired multiple times before, but this time may very well prove to be for real. While Kellerman praised McGregor’s fight IQ and his overall abilities, he also pointed out that the Mayweather fans saw on Saturday would’ve likely been defeated against some of the top guys in the sport.
“What we saw was Conor McGregor’s exceptional quality as a fighter on the one hand and Floyd Mayweather’s age secondarily. I don’t want to take any credit away from Conor, so I’m going to focus on that – but also Floyd at the age of 40 has to stop fighting.”
“There are a lot of young fighters, several at least, who would have knocked Floyd out on Saturday night. I know he wouldn’t have fought them the exact same way but that Floyd doesn’t go the distance with Terence Crawford, may not with Errol Spence. There are a bunch of young guys who would have beaten him up that night. That’s enough, he’s retiring at the perfect time.”
You can watch the full video at the top of the page.
