Last from his historical boxing debut against Floyd Mayweather, UFC star Conor McGregor has some interesting praise for the legendary puncher.
The parts of the ring with multi-division world champion Floyd Mayweather in his first pro boxing match in 2017 Conor McGregor closed the Octagon in a historic crossover match.
And when he was on the wrong side of a loss of stopping, McGregor was finished with strikes for the first time in his combat sport career.
But then, despite his short pre-fighting fairs with Mayweather, the Dubliner gave some surprising praise for his assets in the ring.
Conor McGregor suggested that Floyd Mayweather could flourish in MMA
Much of the pre-fighting discourse between McGregor and Mayweather took the course of how the Michigan boxer would do if he entered the Octagon.
McGregor, who had held the lightweight title in the UFC at the time of his fight with Mayweather on this day in 2017, was convinced that he would easily put the undefeated boxer in mixed martial arts.
After his tenth round TKO defeat, however, the Crumlin striker claimed that if Mayweather would ever set foot in a cage for a fight, he had some “tools” to help him have the upper hand.
“I have always told him (Mayweather) that he was not a hunter, but a boxer,” wrote McGregor on Instagram in 2017. “But sharing the ring with him, he's definitely a solid hunter.
“Strong in the clinch. Great understanding of frames and main position,” McGregor continued. “He has a number of very strong tools that he could certainly bring in an MMA game.”
And behind the back of his fight with Mayweather, McGregor would return to mixed martial arts and scored the biggest fight of his shiny career in the sport.
Conor McGregor fought against Khabib Nurmagomedov after Floyd Mayweather
In what will go as one of the most iconic two-fighting tints in combat history, after his loss against Mayweather, McGregor would return to the UFC to assume the unbeaten Russian star Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Photo by Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Fresh from his own sizzling knockout victory over Eddie Alvarez To create the lightweight crown, McGregor was stripped of his belt to strive for a fight with Mayweather, where Nurmagomedov took his place at the time in the time.
But a year after his loss against Mayweather, McGregor recorded the Dagestani star in demonstrably the biggest resentment fight in the history of the UFC, which led to a long, drawn rivalry that remains to this day.