1. Different Sports
The Mayweather vs. McGregor fight is no ordinary clash in the ring. While Floyd is quite used to residing between the ropes, Conor McGregor is far more familiar with a caged octagon.
Boxing and The UFC are two entirely different sports and trust me, the fans of each respective fighting style will hold no punches in pointing out these differences (pun intended). Boxing is the classic, old-style, blood, sweat, and no tears hand-to-hand combat sport of the 20th century. The greats of Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and yes… Floyd Mayweather Jr. have carried this sport through worldwide greatness for more than a century.
The UFC (officially known as “The Ultimate Fighting Championship”), was founded more recently in 1993, creating a drastically more exotic style of organized fighting which combines both striking and grappling, traced from a mix of multiple fighting styles such as Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Since 1993, The UFC has energized the fighting world with speedier and more vicious fights, and although these two sports co-exist, they’ve never seemed to interfere or interact with each other until now.
Mayweather, a boxer, and McGregor, a UFC fighter, will now face head-to-head in a boxing ring that begs for a showcase of dominance from both corners.
2. Money
The biggest difference between boxing and The UFC is the paycheck.
While The UFC’s top fighter, Conor McGregor, has earned around $27 million from UFC fights, Floyd Mayweather has stacked up whopping career earnings of over $700 million in boxing. $27 million is no small amount of cash, but many UFC fighters are upset with how little the average fighter earns.
The Mayweather v. McGregor fight changes everything. Making the jump to boxing, Conor McGregor is projected to make close to three times his career earnings in just one fight. Far more money than any UFC fighter has seen at this point. Could McGregor challenge the scope of earnings for UFC fighters with a strong showing against Mayweather? We will find out on August 26.
3. Race
Okay… Now to address the huge elephant in the room. While race is not necessarily the most preferable of these contrasting themes, it certainly is one of the more prevalent.
There’s no denying that racism and hatred are two of the greatest world issues of today, and a boxing match between a black man and a white man only adds fuel to that fire. Even during the pre-fight tour we saw elements of racism laced within other homophobic and misogynistic slurs throughout many interactions between Mayweather and McGregor.
Despite the overwhelmingly negative effects of racism, there is no secret that when promoting a boxing match, the heightened racial tensions will boost ratings and revenue exponentially. With both fighters knowing that higher ratings equal higher paychecks, it’s safe to say we can expect continued racism until the first round begins.
4. Experience
While Conor McGregor has had little to no issue with asserting his dominance in the octagon, many argue that McGregor is entirely outclassed by Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring. In fact, many boxing fans are quite offended that McGregor is even getting the chance to fight one of the greatest boxers to ever live having not fought a single, official boxing match to date.
Most boxers spend years fighting as amateurs or undercards before finally getting a crack at a world title belt. OddsShark provides the odds of the highly touted bout to be -400 in favor of Mayweather, and +300 for McGregor.
In other words, if you bet $400 on Mayweather and he wins, you will win $100. If you bet $100 on McGregor and he wins, you win $300. So Mayweather is the heavy favorite, right? Of course, and he should be. Mayweather has proven his dominance in boxing for over 20 years and is well deserving of favorable odds.
A win against McGregor would give Floyd “Money” Mayweather a perfect (50-0) record. However, Conor McGregor’s physical advantages including his age, height, and reach are not to be ignored when analyzing this fight. Can McGregor’s physical tools allow him to overcome his inexperience to topple over Mayweather? For now, Vegas says no.
5. Nationality
Another clashing difference between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor is their country of origin with Mayweather being American, and McGregor being Irish.
While this difference isn’t quite as fiery as their racial difference, it isn’t one to be ignored. In nearly all sports, fans tend to flock to athletes from their own countries. Look at the Olympics, the World Cup, The Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, The World Baseball Championship, even the Little League World Series draws fans’ attention simply due to national representation. Many Americans will root for Mayweather simply because he is American, and in the same way, many Europeans will cheer on Conor McGregor because he lives on the other side of the pond.
Sure, the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight could be a sleeper.
Floyd Mayweather could take care of business as expected and knock out Conor McGregor or win by a very favorable decision. However, it cannot be ignored that this fight is the most polarizing fight of all time. Many fans, whether having watched boxing or not will flock to watch this fight simply because of the underlying themes that make the fight interesting. The most watched pay-per-view event of all time was the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight in 2015 at 4.4 million pay-per-view buys. Bovada, an online sports book has set the Over/Under betting line at 4.99 million buys for the Mayweather vs. McGregor bout, which is by any means impressive.
Will we see the fight of the century?
We will find out on August 26, but one thing is assured, millions upon millions will gather to witness what takes place between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor on Saturday night.
