In late March, UFC lightweight fighter Kevin Lee revealed that he was tapped as one of Floyd Mayweather’s training partners in preparation for the much-hyped Conor McGregor boxing match. At the time, his assessment pretty much echoed everyone else’s in that Mayweather likely wins, but will not be able to stop McGregor.
"Floyd isn't going to knock out Conor. Conor's a much bigger man,” Lee told Helen Yee. “I expect Conor to come out and try to sling Floyd around a little bit in the clinch, try to wear him down.”
His tune changed more than a month later, during a recent interview with Submission Radio. This time, he predicts a late stoppage victory for Floyd Jr., and expects McGregor to eventually tire himself out after a few rounds.
“I think Mayweather would stop him in the later rounds. He (McGregor) would be exhausted,” Lee said. “He will be exhausted after a few rounds. It’s just that pace. That pace is different, it’s just a different sport. And people really don’t understand that because we also throw punches, but it’s just different. The rule set is different. Literally, everything is different. MMA would be different if you just said you can’t kick anymore or you can’t throw knees. MMA in itself would be totally different. So it’s just a different sport, it’s just a different type of body type that goes into it, it’s a different type of way of preparing the body. It’s just different.”
“And I can’t even really give a good prediction. I think he’s gonna knock him out in the later rounds, if I had to say. And I think that will just come with pure exhaustion. You’re taking a sprinter and you’re putting him in there in the long-distance race. Yeah, of course he’s gonna lose.”
“Conor is the much better fighter overall and I think even Floyd would admit that. If we’re talking about pure martial arts fighting skill, I mean, Conor’s way… you can’t even hold a candle to it. But as far as an actual boxing match, I mean, you’re playing into his sport. It’s a cash grab. It’s a good cash grab, that’s what I’ll say.”
Lee says he was tapped by team Mayweather as a training partner when he started working out at their Las Vegas gym. He admits that talks have slowed down and is not holding his breath for it, and if the fight gets pushed back further and further, he would no longer be willing to help out.
“The fight was supposed to happen in June, which I would have been available to help him. But if they ain’t gonna fight until July, November, whenever they’re gonna fight, I don’t know, but If it interferes with my schedule, I’m putting them on the backburner. I’ll let them make their own cheese.”
“The only reason I was gonna do it was cause the money was nice, you know, the money, everything that comes with it, the notoriety and everything. But I’m gonna create that for myself. So when they put the fight off, I was like, okay, I’m gonna take this fight with Michael Chiesa. I’m not gonna sit around and wait, I’ll beat McGregor my damn self. I don’t need to help somebody else do it.”
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