Vern Hee: Mayweather-McGregor has many yawning

This is the last of a three-part series dealing with the Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather upcoming fight in August.

Pre-hype has come to an end and the fight will be less than a month away, at 6 p.m Aug. 26 in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Thank goodness. To me, the whole tour was a big yawn.

I thought it would be fitting to end the pre-fight hype with my own take on the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight.

Mayweather is favored to win, since the fight will be a boxing match. It makes sense that he would be the favored. And he will win.

I really don’t think Mayweather can lose this fight because of his great defensive skills. That being said, you can’t ignore the man’s offensive capability. If you look at his record, 53 percent of his wins are by knockout; that’s 26 out of 49.

Despite what MMA fighters have told me about their training and all, I really don’t think McGregor will have the gas to last beyond five rounds.

McGregor has 24 fights listed in his record. Of those, only three fights have gone beyond the first round. If he will have the gas, he hasn’t proven it yet. He has only had two fights that have gone five minutes. No wonder people are questioning if he will have the gas to go the distance.

I spoke to amateur local MMA fighter Brandon Schneider and he said despite McGregor not having the history, he should be able to go the distance.

“We train and condition for that,” he said. “He should be in shape.”

I just think there is a big difference between training and an actual fight.

The hype about nothing

The Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather four-city tour thankfully came to an end two weeks ago. What a circus. As I sat and watched, I was bored and I actually wanted the clowns to come out for comic relief, but to my dismay there were no clowns. There was a lot of dead air as the opponents sat around and looked at each other trying to think of what insult to say next.

McGregor had the worst insult as he called Mayweather a “boy.”

“Dance for me, boy,” McGregor said.

This is what happens when you stick to boxers on stage without telling them what to say. They not only insult each other but offend the public and their fans.

The whole publicity tour was geared to hyping up the fight and making lots of money. And it did, but it seemed more like what you would see on TV wrestling shows rather than what I remember a boxing match should be like. Despite the complete lack of intensity and sometimes silly antics, the tour was deemed a success as people flocked to place bets on the fight. Perhaps this is the only arena where the fight will succeed.

The play-acting during the tour was terrible. If anything, the two of them need better acting coaches. I remember the Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fights. Now to me, those guys really wanted to kill each other. They sold the crowd and the fight. I am just not seeing it with Mayweather and McGregor.

What are the odds?

Oddsmakers are saying that the fight could surpass the Super Bowl betting.

Sounds like wishful thinking, so I went to the Pahrump Nugget to ask the guys from the William Hill sports book to confirm it. They wouldn’t go on record but they said betting here in Pahrump may not surpass the Super Bowl, but Las Vegas betting was steady.

William Hill said the odds were such, that to make $14 betting on the favorite, Mayweather, you had to bet $100. And people were making that bet. Insane. Of course, Mayweather is favored.

At the time of this writing, the odds on Mayweather were -550 and McGregor stood at +375.

Are there tickets?

Tickets remain elusive and expensive. The nosebleed seats are going anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000.

This makes the Showtime Sports pay-per-view price more attractive.

The pay-per-view price for the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor super fight on Aug. 26 has been set: $89.95 plus $10 more for high definition.

Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com