Though Conor McGregor lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. by 10th-round TKO on Saturday night in Las Vegas, most believe the MMA fighter gave a respectable performance in the ring against one of the best boxers of all time. But if you had read the New York Times’ live blog account of the fight, you would have thought McGregor lost in much more convincing fashion compared to what actually happened.
McGregor came out throwing punches and won the first few rounds of the bout by most accounts. After several rounds, the UFC champ began losing steam and was picked apart by the more experienced, more accomplished Mayweather.
The fight was stopped in the 10th after Mayweather was peppering McGregor with punches, while the Irishman was hardly able to defend himself — a sound reason for the referee to step in and end the fight.
But in their “Highlights from every Round” piece on the fight, the New York Times’ John Eligon and Victor Mather oddly exaggerated what happened, leading them to eventually make corrections to their piece.
Their original version of the article said McGregor’s face was “completely bloodied” just before the stoppage — which was completely false. They also said McGregor “was about to fall through the ropes,” which also was an inaccurate account of what happened.
This screenshot shows both the original and corrected versions of the story:
The FAKE @nytimes changed their article. No disclosure that the article was altered. FAKE pic.twitter.com/2Y52ghJ9BA
— FrontRowBrian (@FrontRowBrian) August 27, 2017
Even in their correction, the Times omitted that they changed the part about McGregor being close to falling through the ropes, only noting their fix about him being bloodied.
Commentary and analysis like that makes one wonder what fight their writers were even watching, and it does a disservice to McGregor, who was much more competitive in the fight than the Times’ account would have you believe.
