Floyd Mayweather Jr. responded to the controversy surrounding Conor McGregor calling him “boy” twice during separate media appearances.
“We all know there’s only 2 types of boys—a white boy and a cowboy—and I’m neither,” Mayweather told TMZ Sports.
“Racism still exists but you know, I try to take something negative and turn it into something positive,” he added. “A lot of people say that Conor McGregor is racist but I’m not worried about that.”
At separate press conferences hyping up the fight between Mayweather and McGregor on Aug. 26, McGregor told Mayweather to “Dance for me, boy.” That quickly elicited questions on social media, including this tweet from Chris Broussard of FS1:
Ryan McKinnell of Yahoo Sports also reacted to McGregor’s choice of words:
“It is what it is. He’s entitled to feel how he wants to feel,” Mayweather said in his response to McGregor’s comments. “I just want to stay in my zone and stay focused.”
McGregor has been accused of insensitive comments in the past. In March 2015, he took a questionable shot at fighter Jose Aldo.
“What I really want to do is turn his favela into a Reebok sweatshop,” McGregor said, per Dave Doyle of Yahoo Sports. “They work well over there.”
And in 2016 he called Nate Diaz a “cholo gangster from the hood,” according to Des Bieler of the Washington Post.
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