Cormier Was Surprised McGregor Did That Well With Mayweather

Former UFC champion Daniel Cormier was very proud of Conor McGregor and the performance of his MMA stablemate from last Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

McGregor, the current UFC lightweight champion, was making his professional boxing debut against a fighter who most consider to be one of the best pure boxers in history, Floyd Mayweather.

Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs), 40 years old and a five division world champion, was coming back from a two year retirement.

McGregor was strong at the start and may have taken the early rounds, but it didn't make long for Mayweather to figure him out, wear him down, and then stop him in the tenth round.

Many were surprised that McGregor was able to last that long, with the majority of observers expecting the contest to be over in the first six rounds.

McGregor's performance surprised many, including Cormier, who did not expect him to do that well against Mayweather.

“When I was watching Conor fight, I felt a sense of, like, pride. I was actually proud of him,” Cormier said on The MMA Hour. “I mean, it doesn’t matter that I’m proud of him. It just felt like, because I think I didn’t expect him to do as well as he did, and when I watched him out there and I watched him look good in there, I watched him hold himself high and give a good account of himself, I was like, man, look at him, look at how professional — he didn’t just chase money, he went out there to try to win a fight against the greatest boxer, I think, of all-time.

“He fought the greatest boxer of all-time and won rounds. I mean, when Brendan Schaub put that bet up that he would win rounds, I was like ‘I’ll take the bet.’ Man, I would’ve lost a lot of money to Brendan Schaub, because Conor won some rounds. He won some rounds and he did a fantastic job, man. We’re all proud of him. We’re all very proud of what he did out there on Saturday.”