McGregor’s odds vs. Mayweather are lower than I thought
A momentary diversion from technology to sports:
(post fight update at the bottom)

tldr update; Reputable sources saying Mayweather bet on himself to win in the 10th round. If true, certainly explains why he took the first half of the fight off.
tldr; Conor will most likely get knocked out but has better odds of winning than Floyd would against a white belt in jiu jitsu. On the other hand, Conor’s normal knockout from MMA won’t work, he has a higher bar to clear with less tools. See my post fight update all the way at the bottom.
As some of you who’ve followed my work for a while now know, I’m a longtime fan and practitioner of combat sports. I abandoned all others when I encountered Gracie Jiu Jitsu (for the most part) and it mostly informs my calculations of combat effectiveness. The principles of Jiu Jitsu are very similar, actually, to what makes DevOps so powerful. That’s a bit of a diversion from my diversion though — a topic for another day.
I’ve not understood the fascination with Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather because to me the outcome is a nearly foregone conclusion. It’s like pitting a tennis player against a raquetball player — or the world’s best decathlete vs a gold medalist sprinter. Who will win? That depends entirely on what sport they are playing. The rules will determine the outcome unless there is a freak accident like Mayweather trips on his shoelace and lands face first on McGregor’s fist.
What I can say in McGregor’s favor is that he has a much better chance, orders of magnitude better, in Mayweather’s field than Mayweather would have in MMA. A two-stripe white belt with a month of real sparring in Gracie Jiu Jitsu would annihilate Mayweather in a real fight. I can describe, in fairly high level of detail, exactly what would happen because I’ve seen it so many times — because I love having friendly challenge matches with specialists of various disciplines and the result is always the same. (Which is something we all really should know after Gracie challenge matches and UFC 1.)
The rules of boxing favor a random outcome far more than MMA where grappling > striking. You will not find anyone succeeding in MMA without years of grappling training to at least avoid takedowns and manage distance. Damian Maia still applies basic grappling and distance management to the best fighters in the world, and beats them while hardly ever getting hit.
The champ, Tyrone Woodley, decided the best way not to get choked unconscious was simply not to engage and there was a record low number of strikes thrown in their recent fight, which, really, is his acknowledgement of the supremacy of Jiu Jitsu. He knew he must avoid getting tangled up with Maia at all costs to even get to the judges for a decision. That meant not being aggressive and staying away, as a strategy limiting vulnerability to being grabbed, clinched, or otherwise taken down.
To attack with strikes is to be vulnerable to the takedown.
Forgive another diversion from the diversion. What I really want to talk about is a revelation I had last night regarding McGregor’s admittedly low odds of pulling off the upset. I had given McGregor maybe up to a 5% chance of landing that odds-beating left hand. But last night I realized something that made me drop that to less than 1%.
Quick recap of my reasoning on the 5% odds: boxing distance vs. kickboxing distance vs. mma distance vs. judo distance vs real fight distance are all very different. Someone who trains for one of those specializes in managing a very different distance and threat vector than one who trains for another. MMA and a real fight were at one time the same in this regard, but rules, points, gloves, time limits, upskilling of fighters, have all caused it to increasingly diverge from a real fight.
All in all, it is still true that an MMA fighter is arguably most prepared for a real fight of practitioners of the popular sports named above because at least the threat vectors are the same even if the probability of a particular attack being effective are very different; because the combatant standing across from you has a very different skillset than you are likely to encounter in the real world, and your ultimate goal is very different. (Real fight=don’t go to the hospital or cemetery, mma=stop your opponent or win over the judges).
Mayweather comes from a boxing family and has been specializing in boxing rules and this distance since he was born. McGregor is used to fighting at a very different pace, different distance, different rules, and having to worry about more things. I’d said before if they fought in MMA, Mayweather would have essentially zero chance because all you have to do is stay outside punching range and he offers virtually no threat. He can’t get into punching range without eating kicks or getting taken down, where he would be essentially helpless.
However, and this is the key point: the rules of boxing maximize McGregor’s opportunity to land that one big shot that could end the fight. Clinches are broken up and you reset and get back to standing right in the pocket and trading punches some more. Virtually the entire fight becomes an opportunity to get lucky for McGregor unless *he* gets knocked out, and we know he has both a good chin and great knockout power, particularly with the left.
Several fighters have given Mayweather trouble, particularly early — Mayweather takes some time to get the perfect timing and takes the fight over in the later rounds, and when he’s been hit, its been early. So I could see maybe ~5% chance of a McGregor lucky punch before the mid-mark of the fight. After that I have a hard time seeing it.
But I just remembered Mayweather vs Sugar Shane Mosley.
In the second round, Mayweather got *cracked* *twice* with right hands by a guy who’d only had three of his thirty five fights go the distance, meaning he KO’d almost everyone. First one really stunned Mayweather and he clinched. Second one was a right hook that came around the guard and caught him right on the ear, and his legs *went.* He did the stanky leg chicken dance for a second.
If you’ve never experienced it, there are levels of “hurt” by a concussive blow to the head. For concussive knockouts, your head accelerates but your brain, floating in cerebra-spinal fluid, stays where it is and slams into your moving skull. That first straight right took Mayweather to level 1 — it feels like you got tasered for a second and you need another second to get your bearings. The second one was level two — your body just stops responding. Level three is loss of consciousness or at least it being diminished, ie, you go on instinct and probably won’t remember it. Most people, once they get to “chicken dance” level will take multiple minutes to recover all the way and probably get finished, unless they get saved by the bell or can effectively clinch and cover. Your body just refuses to obey for a while. Your mind is there but you just can’t get signals through to your extremities, and your coordination is reduced sometimes for hours.
Mayweather had his legs go out and recovered very quickly — a combination of having a really good chin and being in phenomenal shape — when you are in really good cardiovascular shape you tend to recover more quickly, and some people just have naturally better recuperative powers and/or are harder to hurt — we call that “having a good chin.” Mayweather showed he has a *great* chin. This isn’t the only time he’s been hit by big punchers and walked it off — just the best example since he was more hurt than any other time I can remember seeing him.
Watching that sequence again reminded me of another difference between boxing and MMA that plays directly into McGregors chances of pulling off the upset. In MMA when a guy is hurt, the ref has two options — wait to see if the hurt fighter can effectively defend himself or stop the fight if it is obvious he can’t or wont. If you get knocked down and the guy follows you and starts pounding on you — the ref stops the fight. If for even a split second you can’t defend yourself — the ref stops the fight. That’s not how it works in boxing. You can get multiple nine counts, sometimes even if you haven’t been knocked down but are just wobbly and not defending yourself, you get the standing eight. This increases the amount of brain trauma you get in boxing probably exponentially, but that’s a different discussion.
What it means for McGregor/Mayweather is that *not only* does McGregor have to land a big enough shot to get a knockdown or standing eight — Mayweather has to be *unable to continue* after the count. Even if Mayweather gets knocked down, McGregor has to do what Sugar Shane couldn’t, stay clear of the clinch and the defense and land enough additional times to force a stoppage. There’s a small chance of a face-plant walkoff KO — but unless that happens McGregor will have to land *multiple* big shots to stop the fight — against the best defensive boxer in the world.
If you are used to watching him in MMA, he’s had a couple of walk off KOs, like Jose Aldo, but most of his knockouts are *not* 1 punch walkoff style. They require follow up — and are set up with kicks. He kicks to the body as effectively as anybody in MMA, lowering the energy level of his opponent so much that by the time they get knocked down it isn’t that they’re *unconscious* its that they no longer have the energy to defend, forcing the ref to stop it.
Without those kicks and the ability to force a stoppage at the opponent’s lowest moment of energy, McGregor is at a huge disadvantage compared to how he normally finishes a fight.
In my estimation, the odds of him doing that against someone who is used to defending against the best boxers and biggest punchers in the world are very very low. Probably less than 1%.
I’d be surprised but not quite shocked.
Most likely outcome is still Mayweather by KO. Probably catch a counter that puts Conor on queer street and then finishes him. Conor may also get tired and that can contribute.
Second most likely outcome is Mayweather by decision.
Next is Conor lucky punching his way to victory.
The only thing that would truly shock me would be Conor by decision.
If Conor doesn’t get obliterated in the first two rounds it will be a victory for him and MMA.
Anyhoo — what do you think? Let’s have a good sports argument this Friday! If you don’t call it before the fight it doesn’t count!
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Post fight update:
My first reaction reading the live updates was that Conor was doing far better than expected. I watched the fight this morning and I believe it was, for the most part, an illusion. Floyd took the first half of the fight off. He always starts slow, but this was something else. He looked like a 40 year old who hadn’t been in the ring in two years — but I think this may have been strategy. He hardly threw any punches until the fourth round, and in between rounds 1 and 2 his corner said, “By round 4 he’s yours.” I think, having observed Conor’s problems with his gas tank, they were anticipating Conor punching himself out and getting tired (which he did). That fatigue certainly turned it into an easy fight. The side effect is that we had the illusion for a bit that Conor was winning.
Conor landed a lot more punches than I thought he would, but almost none had any snap. His power wasn’t there in the boxing ring. That uppercut he landed in first round was his one chance to win the fight, and it just wasn’t enough. After round 3 his mouth was open and he threw nothing but arm punches after that. Not that he threw much besides arm punches before that. Indeed, Floyd has absolutely no fear of his power and just walked him down from rounds four to ten.
All in all the results I expected in the way I expected, but took Floyd a bit longer to get warmed up than expected.
I’ll also say I wasn’t really terribly impressed with the fight (I didn’t expect to be, but… it was dissapointing in an unexpected way.) Neither guy fought a really impressive fight. Between Mayweather taking half the fight off and Conor’s arm punches — it was very underwhelming.
