Conor McGregor impressed many with the relative success he had in landing punches on defensive master Floyd Mayweather Jr. in their bout last month
Despite having his detractors, including boxing aficionado Max Kellerman who stated that McGregor “would not land one single punch”, McGregor landed more shots on Mayweather than most expected.
In fact, McGregor’s haul in the near 10 rounds of their fight eclipsed the total punches landed by boxing legends Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosely on Mayweather in their respective efforts against the 40-year-old ring icon.
Mayweather told FightHype that there was a reason why the UFC lightweight champion exited the ring with higher punch stats than the aforementioned stars (transcription via MMAFighting):
“That’s because I wasn’t counter-punching and boxing,” said Mayweather when asked about McGregor out landing Pacquiao, Cotto, and Mosley. “The reason why he probably landed a higher percentage or landed more shots than those guys was because I was coming straight ahead, I was barely moving, knocking his shots down a little bit and just breaking him down. That was the game plan, let him shoot everything. I know he was gonna shoot shots from awkward positions but the game plan was to dig into the body with good shots, hit him with left hooks, hit him with straight right hands and keep walking towards him, keep pressing him and pushing him back.
“I could have just stayed on the outside, out-boxed him and counter-punched him, and probably still stop him down the stretch but that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to press and push him.”
