Dan Hardy: Floyd Mayweather ‘teasing’ Conor McGregor with request for smaller gloves
Floyd Mayweather says he will uncharacteristically break his mold for this upcoming boxing meeting with Conor McGregor.
Instead of the technical masterclasses we have seen from the formerly retired boxer in his most recent showings, Mayweather has claimed that he will go toe-to-toe with the Irishman and look to try and get a finish on Aug. 26.
Dan Hardy, who has recently been announced as a part of the Sky Sports commentating team for the fight, believes that Mayweather’s forecast of a firefight is every bit as disingenuous as his original claims that he wanted to use eight-ounce gloves, instead of ten-ounce gloves, when he eventually meets McGregor.
“It’s like all this nonsense about the eight-ounce gloves,” Hardy said, dismissing Mayweather’s prediction of an aggressive display, on the latest episode of The MMA Hour.
“He knows that the process in which he would have to go through to get the eight-ounce gloves approved is far too strenuous at the this point in the build up to the fight.
“All that is doing is teasing Conor with the idea that Conor is coming for a fight because he wants Conor to be fired up when he walks out. It’s all the psychological tactics that Floyd uses.
“The difference in this fight is that normally the first game plan that he sets out with in the build up, it usually works. It usually works because he’s got this promotional monster behind him, which is Mayweather Promotions.”
Hardy believes that Mayweather’s swagger has been knocked because MMA fighters have taken the mantle of the “toughest” athletes since the emergence of the sport, a status that used to be held by boxing professionals.
The former UFC welterweight title contender believes that because Mayweather knows McGregor would beat him in a real fight, he cannot treat him like he has treated his opponents in the past.
“I think he’s having to adapt his own tactics with psychological warfare and that’s it,” Hardy said.
“The thing is, when I was growing up, the tough guy sport was boxing because there wasn’t anything tougher than that. All the tough guys went to boxing, ‘you’re a boxer, you’re a tough guy.’
“When MMA came about, that kind of crossed over to the MMA guys because the reality is; in a fight, the MMA guy wins because we have a grasp of the full skillset.
“That’s taken away from a lot of Floyd’s swagger in this fight. He usually walks in like the tough guy into a fight, you know, the best guy. At the end of the day, it’s like what Brad (Pickett) said, and a great analogy too — if they’re fighting over a pig, Conor gets the ham sandwich.”
When push comes to shove, Hardy doesn’t think Floyd really wanted the change of gloves that he proposed in a social media post at the beginning of the month.
Nonetheless, on Wednesday, the Nevada Athletic Commission approved a "one time" exception for Mayweather and McGregor to wear eight-ounce gloves, despite rules stating that 10-ounce gloves must be worn when contesting a boxing bout at 154 pounds.
