Overview
The day is finally here. The day which looks certain to break all pay-per-view records. The mega money boxing bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr.(One of the greatest if not The greatest boxer of all time) and Conor McGregor(The Irish powerhouse who took the MMA world by storm).
Mayweather, 40, is a five division world boxing champion, an Olympic bronze medalist and is undefeated in his lucrative boxing career winning 49 matches on a trot. He is widely recognized as the best defensive boxer of all time, dodging 81.1% of strikes by opponents. Mayweather has generated approximately 20 million PPVs and $1.3 billion in revenue throughout his 20 year career.
Also read: ZlatanIbrahimović re-signs for Manchester United, takes fifty percent pay cut
A relatively unknown entity up until that point, Conor McGregor, then 24, joined UFC in 2013 and took the world by a storm with a 67 seconds Knock-Out in his debut match. There has been no looking back since then. He went on to win 8 of his next 9 UFC fights, knocking out Brazilian legend Jose Aldo (UFC Featherweight Champion for 6 years) within 13 seconds and conquered his first title. In November, 2016 he KO'd the then Lightweight Champion Eddie Alvarez to become the first UFC fighter to be a two-division champion simultaneously.
On Saturday night, these gargantuan of personalities will lock horns at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for a 154 lbs crossover boxing bout. What is a crossover fight? When athletes from different disciplines of combat sports move into uncharted territory to take on an opponent who possesses a different form of skill set.
So what makes this bout interesting? For starters, revenue-wise this could be the biggest fight in the history of combat sports, overshadowing the previous benchmark set by the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout in 2015. Moreover, it will be interesting to see if McGregor can land his famous and vicious left hook to arguably the most defensively decorated boxer of all time in Mayweather. McGregor has claimed he will knock Floyd out within four rounds. Boxing fans and practitioners are calling this match-up a farce and laughing at the 'gullibility' of McGregor, which to some extent is understandable because the Irish is a 0-0 in professional boxing. But McGregor has this uncanny habit of predicting his fights. He believes in walking the talk and he has been doing that for the past four years in each of his fights barring one.
At the end of the day, this is combat sports; it takes one punch to knock someone out; and like McGregor himself quoted after his win over Jose Aldo: "Timing beats Speed, Precision beats Power". With age by his side it will be interesting to see if Conor can walk the talk this time around and cause the greatest upset in the history of combat sports.
TV Channel: There is no Live TV coverage of this match in Singapore or India
Venue: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas
Date:27th August
Time:12.00 pm SGT (Sunday)/9.30 am IST (Sunday)/4.00 am GMT (Sunday)
Livestream
Singapore:The PPV is available for $49.95 for TV and StarHub Go Android app/web browser and $49.98 for StarHub Go iOS app.
India: The fans can watch the action on VEQTA. VEQTA is a mobile first network and the application can be downloaded on Android as well as IOS mobiles. Fans will have to pay a nominal ₹99 annual subscription fee to secure access to the digital platform.
