De La Hoya on Mayweather-McGregor: Canelo Alvarez ‘probably’ would’ve KO’d Conor in 1-2 rounds

Oscar De La Hoya openly and repeatedly bashed Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor, which he once feared would irreparably damage the sport of boxing. On the eve of last weekend’s showdown, De La Hoya said that both Floyd and Conor were disrespecting boxing by staging this fight.

Well even with all of the dislike, the retired boxer-turned-fight promoter still had an opinion on Mayweather’s 10th round TKO of McGregor. De La Hoya believes Floyd, who said that the gameplan was to take his time and then take over as McGregor tired out, deliberately let Conor have the early rounds.

“Because Mayweather let him,” De La Hoya said on The MMA Hour. “The first four of five rounds, he let him do that. … The punches are coming from different angles. It was a bit awkward to watch, actually.” (Transcription via MMA Fighting)

Judge Dave Moretti gave McGregor the first three rounds, but Guido Cavalleri and Burt Clements actually awarded rounds 2 and 3 to Mayweather. None of them had McGregor winning rounds 4-9, and Moretti and Cavalleri each awarded Mayweather a 10-8 for the penultimate frame.

The next major boxing match on the docket is a September 16th middleweight championship clash between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez, both of whom held media workouts in front of fans in Los Angeles on Monday. Oscar couldn’t resist the opportunity to pump up just how quickly his fighter would’ve put McGregor away.

“After seeing Saturday’s fight, Canelo probably would have knocked [McGregor] out in one round or two rounds,” De La Hoya said. “Canelo is a knockout guy, he’s a guy who’s not gonna trick people into making a fight last longer than it should last.

“MMA fighters are amazing fighters and I respect them dearly and boxing fighters are boxers. That’s just the bottom line.”

De La Hoya later added of McGregor, “the fact that [he] even tried, there’s huge respect from my part to him. I respect the UFC, I respect any UFC fighter that’s in the Octagon, I respect fighters that put their life on the line. What I’m trying to say is they’re two different sports and I don’t want to see anything like it again.”

You an watch the whole MMA Hour interview at the top of the page.