Chael Sonnen gives Conor McGregor ‘zero’ chance against Floyd Mayweather

Conor McGregor‘s blockbuster boxing match with the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. is now just a month and a half away, and it seems to be all anybody is talking about. The latest member of the MMA Community to weigh in on this groundbreaking showdown was three-time UFC title challenger and current Bellator light heavyweight star, Chael Sonnen. Sonnen chimed in on the fight on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

One of the more interesting takeaways from Sonnen’s discussion of the fight came when host Ariel Helwani asked if the Irishman McGregor had any chance against the boxing star.

“Are you kidding me? None. Zero,” Sonnen said (via Peter Carroll of MMAFighting.com), effectively labelling a Mayweather win a sure-thing. 

Sonnen also believes that the integrity of boxing is on the line when McGregor takes on Mayweather.

“You don’t understand what’s on the line here, because nobody seems to want to tell it,” he said. I watched the press conference, they had the Showtime guy and they had Floyd’s representative and Dana on there.”

“They all wanted to be real careful and say that this isn’t MMA versus boxing. I have no idea why they would be so dishonest. This is boxing against boxing. You have the greatest boxer of all time, according to boxers. They, as a community, have put this guy forward as their best ever. He’s never lost professional fight in boxing. He’s taking on a guy that has never done professional boxing.”

“If this ends any other way but quickly and decisively for Floyd, the entire integrity of the sport of boxing is on the line.”

Sonnen then called boxing a “fringe sport.”

“The entire integrity of a fringe sport (is on the line),” he said. 

“Don’t forget there is no a high school in this country that recognizes boxing as a real sport. The NCAA will not contest it and people think that’s because it’s a dangerous sport. The NCAA doesn’t see it as a sport. The only body with any kind of integrity that still recognizes it and contests it is the International Olympic Committee (IOC), then you have all of these different commissions.”

“This is the entire integrity of the sport versus Conor McGregor.”

What do you think of this take from Chael Sonnen?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/11/2017.