Floyd Mayweather Jr. believes upcoming opponent Conor McGregor is “losing a lot of fans” over accusations of racism on the boxing fight’s world press conference tour.
McGregor initially caused controversy after recently telling Mayweather to “dance for me, boy.” MMA Junkie’s Steven Marrocco reported McGregor then responded to accusations of racism in Brooklyn, claiming he’s half-black and humping the air while saying he had “a little present for my beautiful black female fans.”
This reignited the racism row, however, and Mayweather has since responded by saying his Aug. 26 foe crossed a line:
“This is an event where two fighters are competing against one another, but saying a lot of racist things like today toward black women. I have two black daughters, a black mother, of course I’m a black man.”
“He’s crossing the line, but I can’t really focus on that right now. I’m here to do a job, and my job is to go out there and entertain. But he’s losing a lot of fans by doing that.”
McGregor walked out to the Brooklyn press conference to the music of Irish musician Sinead O’Connor followed by late Brooklyn-born rapper Notorious BIG, later addressing allegations of racism, via Sports Illustrated:
Mayweather previously spoke to TMZ regarding McGregor’s choice of words in referring to him as “boy,” and the 40-year-old said he wasn’t offended:
When asked on Jimmy Kimmel Live! if he would beat Sylvester Stallone’s character from Rocky III in a fight, McGregor replied, per MailOnline’s Daniel Matthews: “Rocky III, that’s the one where he had that celebrity gym isn’t it? With the dancing monkeys in the gym and all?”
As Matthews noted: “(Mcgregor’s) comments led some people to suggest the MMA star was referring to a scene in the film when Rocky Balboa walks into a gym full of black fighters.”
MMA expert Luke Thomas recently expressed his view McGregor had no racist intentions referring to Mayweather as “boy,” although the back-and-forth is at risk of becoming ugly:
A little more than a month remains until arguably the biggest combat sports event of the century so far gets underway Aug. 26.
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