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30th Aug 2017

Mike Tyson has graded Conor McGregor on his boxing debut

The former baddest man on the planet has changed his tune

Darragh Murphy

Mike Tyson has a lot more respect for Conor McGregor after last weekend.

While he was outclassed by Floyd Mayweather as many predicted, the valiant effort put in by ‘The Notorious’ on Saturday night resulted in the boxing community admitting that he had surpassed all expectations.

McGregor enjoyed some early success against Mayweather and while it is an undisputed fact that ‘Money’ had a strategy in place to wear out the cardio of McGregor by making him waste energy with an inefficient output, nobody can say it was part of Mayweather’s game plan to get hit flush on the chin with an early uppercut from the Irishman.

McGregor earned plenty of new fans with the fact that he landed at all in his debut against the most unhittable boxer of all time and one man who has definitely changed his tune on the UFC lightweight champion is ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson.

Prior to Saturday’s Money Fight, Tyson had predicted on the Pardon My Take podcast that “McGregor is going to get killed boxing.”

But after lasting 10 rounds against one of the greatest to ever do it, McGregor has been rewarded with some hard-earned respect from the former heavyweight champion of the world.

“Oh man, he got an A,” Tyson said of McGregor on The Luke Thomas Show, via BoxingScene.com. “He did great. … A guy that never did that before and he went 10 rounds.”

Tyson also insisted that referee Robert Byrd was a tad too quick to wave off the contest.

“He should have went down,” Tyson said. “The guy stopped it a little too quick.”

Asked whether ‘The Notorious’ would be better served returning to the Octagon or staying put in the lucrative boxing game, Tyson had this to say: “Well he’s capable. He can do this if he wants to.

“I would say go back to the UFC but if you get paid more money boxing, I would box.”