Kenny Florian reveals Conor McGregor's best weapon against Floyd Mayweather
It's safe to say chatter about Floyd Mayweather versus Conor McGregor will dominate the sports landscape for the next two months until the fighters meet in the ring on Aug. 26 in Las Vegas.
Plans are currently underway for a press conference where Mayweather and McGregor will meet face-to-face for the first time since the fight was made official a week ago.
On paper, Mayweather is a massive favorite with a perfect 49-0 record and a resume that reads like a who's who of top boxers over the past two decades who have attempted to hand the defensive wonder his first loss and still managed to come up short.
McGregor has sounded ultra confident in his ability to finally put a loss on Mayweather's record, but he's certainly facing long odds while going up against arguably one of the greatest boxers of all time. It doesn't help matters much that McGregor has never boxed professionally in his career and now he's taking on one of the best to ever do it.
Former UFC title contender Kenny Florian believes that McGregor has a chance to get to Mayweather, but his best weapon may not be the left hand that he's used to put away opponents like Jose Aldo and Eddie Alvarez.
Instead, Florian believes that McGregor's greatest chance to rattle Mayweather could be in the weeks leading up to the fight when he will undoubtedly go after the 40-year old boxer with a verbal assault like he's never faced before.
"I think honestly the best thing that Conor could do is what he does outside of the ring, outside of the cage, and that is get inside the head of Floyd Mayweather," Florian explained on the latest episode of "UFC Tonight". "Get him emotional, get him leaping in, that's when Conor gets the knockouts.
"Everyone talks about the power of Conor, absolutely I'm sure he hits very hard, but he gets guys lunging in. He gets guys emotional. He gets them doing things they don't normally do and that's what he needs to do against Floyd. I don't know if Floyd's dealt with someone who talks trash like Conor McGregor and gets you emotional like Conor McGregor."
McGregor has certainly used his gift for gab as a way to get into his opponents' heads since arriving in the UFC four years ago.
It's also clear that nothing is off limits when it comes to McGregor's trash talk considering he's already referenced past legal incidents from Mayweather's career in the months leading up to the fight becoming official.
Florian adds that McGregor's other best chance to hurt Mayweather is to make this fight turn into a brawl because simply said he will not be able to just out box the former multi-time champion.
"The other thing he could do is try to get nasty," Florian said. "Get a little rough, get into the clinch, tire out those arms by doing maybe what Rocky Marciano used to do, which is beat up the arms a little bit, get those tired, clinch him up, try to tire him out.
"Do something unusual."
Ultimately, Florian feels like McGregor's best path to victory will have to come in the early part of the fight while Mayweather is still getting his feet wet again after two years away from the sport after retiring in 2015. Mayweather has traditionally been a bit of a slow starter but that's never been a problem for McGregor, who has finished seven of his UFC opponents inside the first or second round.
"If Conor's going to get it done, it's probably going to happen early," Florian predicted.
McGregor will likely get his first crack at Mayweather when the two fighters engage in a press conference in the near future with rumors about a potential multi-city tour to promote the fight still lingering in the air with the fight almost exactly two months away.