UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor made his pro boxing debut at “The Money Fight” and was finished by Floyd Mayweather via tenth round TKO.
The legendary Mayweather kept coming forward against McGregor in the fight and according to striking coach Owen Roddy, the McGregor camp didn’t expect that strategy from the opposition.
“I felt the game plan that we came up with and the strategy we had for the first four rounds was really good. Conor was doing well. It was a tight fight,” he said on The MMA Hour. “Conor was landing shots that we worked and he was landing them often enough. In my opinion, when Mayweather switched it up and he kind of walked Conor down with the hands high and elbows in and just kept walking forward and let Conor throw shots at the arms – when we saw that we hadn’t prepared for it.”
Mayweather is known as one of the greatest defensive boxers who ever entered the ring and the fighter did get his first finish inside of the ring in nearly six years against McGregor.
Roddy also admits that while McGregor was soundly defeated in the fight, the Irish competitor did land a few good shots against Mayweather.
“I watched hundreds of hours of Floyd, and the thing about him is, he never really gets hit clean and he did get clipped a good few times in those first four rounds,” he said. “He took the shots really well. When you’re fighting for so long and you’re not damaging your chin – and Floyd hasn’t damaged his chin – even when the shots do land clean you can take them well because your brain has not been damaged over a period of years. All the switches, the working the body, the lead uppercut – all of those shots that we worked in camp landed and I was very happy with that, just the big shot didn’t land where we wanted it to. From rounds five to seven, Floyd won those. I think we might have got round eight too…and then in nine and ten, we all know what happened in those.”
Now that the super fight is over, the striking coach is awaiting what the next move for McGregor may be, whether it comes in the UFC or another boxing bout.
