CONOR McGREGOR’S boasting is as fantastical as the Las Vegas architecture.
You want the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids of Giza all on the same street in the Mojave Desert? You got it.
You want to believe that a man who’s never fought a professional boxing bout is going to defeat a five-weight world champion who’s seeking to create an all-time record of 50-0?
Well this is the town for you. A town of 200,000 fruit machines. They do long odds here, too.
McGregor, a 29-year-old Dubliner with a mouth as wide as the Irish Sea, is at home in this dream-like theme park for grown-ups.
And he’s so full of it that you almost believe he believes what he’s saying.
After all, the global superstar of the UFC mixed martial arts franchise has been on an astonishing journey already.
He was signing on at the dole office five years ago. Now he owns a yacht.
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McGregor tells us he is convinced he will knock out the flawless Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather at the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.
Then the ringmaster of this circus would become the master of every conceivable ring from the UFC’s octagon to the Marquis of Queensberry’s square.
McGregor was asked whether he fancied fighting any more of boxing’s great names after Mayweather and was informed that a bout with Canelo Alvarez was being talked up by the Mexican’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya.
McGregor said: “Well after Saturday I’ll be the true king of both sports. I’m already the king of fighting and I’ll be the king of boxing also.
“I’ll get to pick and choose who I fight, where and under what rules — I am open to both.
“I may f*** this fool on Saturday and create my OWN ring, not a boxing ring, not an octagon, I’ll create my own one — some brand new hybrid — maybe a ‘ringtagon’.”
But isn’t Mayweather perhaps the greatest defensive boxer of all time? A man who owns a private jet, a fleet of sports cars and wears a rock on his little finger worth more money than most men will earn in their lives, all because of his ability to NOT get hit.
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So how is a man who has never boxed professionally going to succeed where Manny Pacquiao, De La Hoya, Alvarez, Ricky Hatton and scores of other elite boxers have failed? One reason why this fight is expected to make a record five million pay-per-view sales is that nobody knows how a no-holds-barred fighter is going to box.
But the Irishman promises he will fight with the same lack of subtlety as he talks — like a bull in a china shop from the opening bell.
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“MAYWEATHER is going to play around for six or seven rounds, give the vast audience their money’s worth, then take McGregor out”
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McGregor ranted: “I don’t give a f*** about Mayweather’s defence, I don’t give a f*** about his offence, I don’t give a f*** about his record, a fight’s a fight — I’ve watched how boxers have approached him and I know exactly how I am going to take him out.
“I’m not worried about how he’s going to start. I’m going to start extremely fast and bust him up. I believe I’ll knock him out in one or two rounds. I don’t see him surviving.”
McGregor tends to win most of his UFC bouts standing up rather than grappling on the deck and he is certainly in possession of a sledgehammer left hand.
He was asked whether he felt more comfortable as a boxer than as an all-in fighter. Predictably, McGregor wasn’t tempted to answer modestly.
He said: “I am a brown belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu as well. I am also a master in the clinch. I have finished men with elbows to the temple in the clinch, I have many ways and many skills. I am a free fighter.
“I’m comfortable boxing, I’m preparing for a boxing fight, I am putting in the systems for it.
“But I am looking forward to rattling my foot off the cheek after this and getting back to my kicking game, my wrestling, my clinching, my jiu jitsu — fighting is in me and I enjoy every fight.”
McGregor says he is motivated by Mayweather’s dismissive attitude towards UFC.
He added: “That’s what woke me up. I was a kid listening to him talking down about a sport I was dedicating my entire life to.
“That was when he first came on my radar. I thought ‘I will climb in there with him, I will get that fight’ and it turned out he was the one that came to me so that was perfect.”
And as for Mayweather’s claims that McGregor could fail to make the 11st super-welterweight limit, the Irishman insists: “He knows nothing — let him keep praying. Soon he’ll be praying to the new God of boxing.”
With that he was off and so we headed out squinting into the sunshine, the Empire State Building to our left and a fairytale castle straight ahead.
If McGregor can make it anywhere, he can make it in Vegas. Just so long as he manages to overcome his shyness.
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