The outspoken pundit did not hold back when discussing his opinion of Floyd Mayweather Jr. as a fighter ahead of his bout with Conor McGregor
Bayless is best known as the contentious co-host of Fox Sports 1’s Skip and Shannon: Undisputed.
On Thursday’s special edition of The MMA Hour Bayless attempted to substantiate his opinion that McGregor will come out better following his bout with Mayweather on Saturday night (via MMAFighting):
“I don’t know how long Floyd thinks he can get away with not fighting because he hasn’t had what I would call a serious battle,” Bayless told Ariel Helwani.
“You can just discount [Manny] Pacquiao, Pacquiao tore his rotator cuff three weeks before that fight.
“It was a pillow fight, they just sort of waltzed for twelve rounds, Pacquiao doesn’t have a mark on his face, it goes to the judges. I thought Pacquiao was the aggressor in that fight, Floyd just ran for the whole fight and threw a lot of flick punches…little mosquito punches.
“In the end, Floyd hasn’t had a real battle of a fight since the second (Marcos) Maidana fight and that’s almost three years ago.”
Bayless was not done there, however, as he completely tore into the legendary boxer:
“Floyd stays in naturally good shape, but he is a little man and Conor’s right: he has a little head, a little torso and little legs and brittle hands.
“I give Conor more than a puncher’s chance. I think he’ll set up Floyd to come out of his comfort zone. He’s goaded him with trash talking – Floyd has to try to knock him out because if he doesn’t it would be shameful for the sport of boxing and for Floyd’s fiftieth win.
“I think he’ll get him out of his comfort zone, land one shot in the seventh or eighth round and all of a sudden he’ll unleash unholy hell on him.”
Bayless ended by stating that, unless the fight ends in a knockout, it is “fixed”:
“It has to be by knockout,” he said.
“If this goes twelve and it goes to the judges…I’ll go this far…it’s effectively fixed with those two Las Vegas judges – one is from Reno, one is from Vegas.
“They’ve done all sorts of Floyd fights and they’re not going to let Conor win on points. And again, Conor can’t outbox him, but he can out punch him. So, again, he has to win by knockout and he will.”
