Yesterday (July 11, 2017), Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor met face-to-face for the very first time in Los Angeles on the first stop of a world tour to promote their Aug. 26 boxing match.
At first, Mayweather, a former five division world champion, was calm and quiet, allowing the typically outlandish McGregor to talk trash and ignite the crowd. Once he took his turn in front of the thousands of fans in attendance, however, vintage Mayweather showed up.
“Money” began ripping into the Irishman, and Showtime Sports Executive Stephen Espinoza admits that his behavior was a ‘bit out of character’:
“Floyd, as he’s gotten older, he’s definitely mellowed,” Espinoza told MMAFighting.com. “If you look back at De La Hoya-Mayweather, Floyd did a lot of talking, a lot of needling Oscar throughout that press tour. Floyd is in a different place now. I don’t know exactly what to make of it. It is a little bit out of character. I think if I had to guess, it’s little bit of competitiveness and pride. Conor came out and had a standup comedy routine. The crowd ate it up. I think the entertainer in Floyd said I can’t come up here and give a bunch of cliches. He dished it out just like he took it.”
Espinoza was also a bit surprised at how pro-McGregor the Los Angeles crowd was given the fact that Mayweather owns property in the area and spends a solid amount of time in the area:
“I was surprised,” Espinoza said. “Floyd has a couple of places here. He spends a good amount of time in LA. He’s an LA-Vegas guy. But I think what you saw was the passion of the McGregor fans. He’s really connected with them, on social media and in person. He’s such a big personality that people really, really get attached to him.”
At the end of the day, many are still criticizing the fight. Some have labeled it as nothing more than a ‘money grab’. Others are angered by the fact that McGregor, a man who has never competed in a professional boxing match, is taking on one of the very best boxers of this era.
Espinoza, however, says the fans demanded this fight:
“I’m aware there is some backlash among the boxing purists. But this is — as Floyd has said — it’s a fight that happened because of the demand. If they had sort of thrown the idea out there and it got no traction, we wouldn’t be sitting here today.”
The second stop on the world tour will take place later today in Toronto, Canada.
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