The four-time world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, who ruled the ring alongside the likes of Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson during the 1980’s and 90’s, gave his thoughts on a possible cross-codes fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC king Conor McGregor.
Interest between both parties has made it into the public domain in recent weeks as contract and sanction problems were highlighted in holding up the possible confirmation of a late 2017 or early 2018 contest. McGregor has publicly given Mayweather a tongue lashing on more than one occasion, but more recently when ‘The Notorious’ visited Las Vegas for a license meeting and ‘Money’ was nowhere to be found.
Holyfield, who retired in 2011, would - like most – be an avid viewer of any Mayweather v McGregor encounter, but sees the fight firmly swayed towards the ex-pound for pound number one should he eventually face the outspoken Irishman in the boxing ring.
“Whenever you jump into someone else’s profession and disrespect them, you can end up being the one being disrespected,” Holyfield told. “If he fights Floyd at boxing, Floyd’s gonna beat the daylights out of him as that’s his profession. But of course, if Floyd gets down on the floor with that guy (in MMA), he’ll tap him out faster than not. Everybody has their specialist, something they are great at, so it’s good for the person who does what they do best, which is Floyd in the boxing ring.”
“The only chance McGregor has got in the fight is if he throws one of those wild shots and Floyd don’t see it, but Floyd’s got good eyes! Ain’t no professional boxer going to get hit with a shot like that from their shoes. There’s no way in the world! - It’s just not gonna happen like that with professionals. Top professionals like Floyd don’t just get dumb overnight, No! – Floyd can take of himself and he just ain’t gonna get floored in that kind of aspect,” he added.
