Conor McGregor claims he wanted to sustain more damage on August 26.
Unhappy with the stoppage against Floyd Mayweather, McGregor said “let me go down. Let the man put me down!” after the so-called Money Fight was waved off in the tenth round.
Mayweather had clearly taken control of the fight, McGregor’s first in a boxing ring, and the finish looked inevitable when an exhausted McGregor started to struggle to defend himself from the onslaught.
Referee Robert Byrd had seen enough and called a halt to proceedings when he deemed that the Irishman had taken enough punishment.
“I thought it was close though and I thought it was a little early of a stoppage,” McGregor said after the defeat. “I get like that when I’m tired. I get a little wobbly and flowy. But fuck, get me into the corner and I’ll recover and I’ll come back.
“And I’d like it to hit the floor. There’s a lot on the line here, (Byrd) should have let me keep going I thought, but fair play to (Mayweather).”
Mayweather, on the other hand, is grateful that he didn’t flatline McGregor when he claimed his 50th professional victory after coming out of retirement to play his part in the spectacle.
The boxing legend has admirably claimed that he’s glad the fight didn’t end in a clean knockout because he didn’t want to impact McGregor’s bright future by punching him into unconsciousness.
“He has a career. He still has a career. He’s still young. [Knockouts are] very, very damaging. We have to think about these fighters,” Mayweather said in the below video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SFrr7f_qrY
“Even with my uncle Roger. Right now, I got a call, just before I came here, he keeps walking offer, wandering off – no one can find him. He ends up in a hospital. So, brain damage… it happens.”
McGregor and Mayweather, both masters of fight promotion, engaged in plenty of trash talk in the build-up to their lucrative meeting in the T-Mobile Arena but there is nothing but respect between the pair now, having sharing the squared circle for the best part of half an hour.
“There are two names,” Mayweather added.
“In combat sports there are two names. There are two names. Mayweather and McGregor. There are two names. And even with me being off two years, I still was the biggest name. Even with me retired, I’m still the biggest name in boxing and MMA.”
From mocking McGregor as a mere puppet of UFC president Dana White during the promotional tour for the fight, Mayweather is now proclaiming McGregor to be his only challenger in the game.
He’s still number one, though. Never doubt that.
