The Freak Show Preview

To combat sports fans, Mayweather-McGregor is nothing more than a freak show. To the rest of the world, it’s a spectacle. One of these two news stories will start trending in a few hours:
1. Mayweather beats McGregor.
2. McGregor upsets Mayweather.
If the first transpires, which is highly likely, you can be rest assured that America’s version of crazy nationalists will be out on the streets celebrating like Muhammad Ali himself had been resurrected.
I have come to learn over the years that only Muricans can celebrate incredibly obvious results in sports and then connect it to America’s “manifest destiny” history and then loudly say “God bless America” as if something logical was just said.
If you are not expecting the most successful boxer of all time (certainly not the greatest) to defeat a guy from another sport who got his boxing license a couple of months ago and is making his boxing debut today, one of two things is possible:
(a) You neither follow combat sports nor understand it, but love getting caught up in the social media haze to collect a few reactions.
(b) What (a) said.
2. It is highly unlikely that McGregor will win a boxing debut match at the highest possible level in the sport unless he is lucky enough to land one of his crazy punches and take Floyd’s head off. A “puncher’s chance” isn’t exactly how you want to enter a match but there is no other way Conor can win this bout and he knows that pretty well.
Now here is the thing, who do you think has anything on the line and has something to lose?
Win or lose Conor is not going to take up boxing full time. He doesn’t personally care about the sport of boxing or Mayweather. He cares about milking this bout to make millions. Just by competing in this freak show he has opened up potential new avenues for MMA fighters.

Pretty soon more MMA folks will start challenging boxers. But the other way around is highly unlikely. No boxer of any skill level can train for 2 months and enter the Octagon. It takes years to prepare for a fight. It takes a month or two to prepare for a bout. That’s the difference.
Mayweather on the other hand has come out of retirement for this bout. He has to win. As a lifelong combat sports fan I see no reason why he wouldn’t win. But just in case he doesn’t, he would have ruined his so called legacy because he would have lost to a total rookie in boxing. In his ring. Playing by his rules. Inside his world.
Given the size of his ego, Mayweather’s world would come crashing down and he would end up retiring in disgrace. You see as an outsider you may talk about his 49–1 record but the fact is he lives in a different world. In combat sports, including the now dull sport of boxing, honor and respect are real things. Floyd will lose both if he loses this impossible-to-lose bout.
Don’t even think about a rematch in the UFC. Unlike Conor, the great Floyd is entirely incapable of entering the Octagon. To be very generous to him, I think the UFC rookie featherweights and bantamweights can send him to the hospital. A fight with Conor is out of the question, unless Floyd has a death wish. Quite literally.
Of course he will make good money. Both of them will. And Mayweather will make more (quite likely a lot more) than McGregor, but Mayweather has his reputation and legacy at stake while McGregor can walk out with the money and say:
“I lost to the best on my debut. How many boxers in history have made their debut against Ali, Tyson, or Mayweather at the height of their careers and made millions? That’s right. No boxer in history.”
On the other hand if Conor pulls off the ridiculous and actually wins, all hell will break loose. He is already the face of the fight sport but after an unlikely win against Floyd he is going to become the face of combat sports.
McGregor has everything to gain. Mayweather has everything to lose.
I will do multiple post-match analysis in different formats if McGregor wins because harping on the obvious result isn’t my thing. I am not Murican.
