LAS VEGAS — They made weight so now they can finally fight.
Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor stepped on the scale Friday afternoon in Sin City and both weighed below the 154-pound limit for their mega match Saturday. So while fight fans can now officially look forward to the most hyped bout in human history actually happening after nearly two years of taunting, trolling, and teasing between the fighters, just know it's going to come in front of a massively pro-McGregor crowd.
Held in the same T-Mobile Arena that will host Saturday's fight, the weigh-in was dominated by McGregor supporters who were incredibly boisterous and vastly out-numbered Mayweather fans. Clad in Irish colors with many draped in the flag of Ireland, the cheers from the massive underdog's fans were thunderous and their revelry continued well after the weigh-in had officially wrapped up. Songs like "Walking in a McGregor Wonderland," "Fuck Mayweather," "Pay Your Taxes," and "You'll Never Beat the Boys in Green" were shouted on repeat by a contingent of a hundred or so high-spirited hardcore McGregor fans that arena security was begging to leave and struggling to keep them from standing on seats.
“There’s a saying you’ll never beat the Irish” McGregor told the crowd after weighing in at 153 pounds. “Las Vegas is Ireland now.”
Mayweather, on the other hand, came in four and a half pounds under the limit. The slightly surprising number that gave McGregor yet another opportunity to mock the future Hall of Famer. Shouting that he’d never seen Mayweather in worse shape, McGregor beat his chest as the stare down between the fighters broke up, much to his fans' delight. Mayweather, as you'd expect, was ready with a counter.
“Weight doesn’t win fights. Fighting wins fights,” he said.
Histrionics aside, the question that's actually relevant to the fight itself following the weigh-in is how much McGregor, already the bigger man, will blow up as he re-hydrates? McGregor boasted that he’ll come into Saturday's event (Showtime PPV, 9 ET) “a lot bigger” than Mayweather, predicting he’d weigh around 170 in the ring.
Of course that got a massive cheer from his supporters. While McGregor is nearly a 6-1 underdog in most books around town, it doesn't matter to his fans who have flooded the fight capital of the world. He might have an impossible task in beating the 49-0 Mayweather, but that isn't going to stop them from cheering, chanting, and taunting anyone that wants to rain on their parade.
“The fans can’t fight for you," said Mayweather when asked about the overwhelming McGregor support. "Forty-nine times I went out there, it was 1-on-1.”
Come Saturday, McGregor fans will probably have invented a new chant about that.
