Floyd Mayweather was the most recent in a long line who felt that the Jeff Horn – Manny Pacquiao fight that ended with Horn being declared the winner, despite the howls of many of the boxing experts, to weigh in on his opinion of the decision.
Mayweather said, without mincing his words, “It was OK for Manny Pacquiao to fight the guy he just fought — but it’s a problem for me to fight a two-time world champion? The guy Pacquiao fought, we don’t even know. We don’t even know who he is, I don’t even know his name right now … that fight shouldn’t have even been on ESPN. At all.”
Mayweather’s remarks followed some questioning of his decision regarding his last opponent, Andre Berto. There were suggestions that Berto was not worthy of Mayweather.
Conor McGregor, on the other hand, had nothing but good things to say about Horn. He said of Pacquiao’s performance in the Horn fight, “Look what happened to him in that last fight. He got mauled. He got absolutely mauled in that fight. People were crying ‘big robbery,’ I didn’t see no robbery in that fight. I saw a man that just got mauled in a fight.”
Would it be safe to characterise defeat by Horn as a mauling?
Despite his praise for the Aussie schoolteacher, it is doubtful, even if McGregor should win his August 26 (August 27 AEDT) fight with Mayweather, that he would give Horn a shot. Horn simply does not have the sort of profile McGregor requires, although it is likely that he could earn more by fighting Horn than he could in the UFC ring.
McGregor does not seem too keen on any of the current boxing contenders, such as Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin.
“(But) none of those names interest me at this present time. Like I said, I’m facing the god of boxing at the moment. (Mayweather) is supposedly the god of boxing and he could have stayed the god, he could have rode off 49-0. Instead, now I am here, and now I am the God of boxing.”
