It may have provided some entertaining moments and hype-building quips, but overall it’s safe to say the collective combat sports world is glad the four-city, three-country Mayweather vs. McGregor world tour is over.
The media whirlwind hit a high note on Wednesday in Toronto where “The Notorious” received a huge pop from the Canadian crowd as he unleashed all of his best one-liners, which nearly all of hit home with hilarity.
The exact opposite was true of the following day’s stop in Brooklyn, New York, however, where he mockingly addressed accusations of racism earlier in the week with an extremely off-color sexual innuendo before humping the air for his female African American fans:
“Let’s address the race,” McGregor said. “A lot of media seem to be saying I’m against black people. That’s absolutely f*cking ridiculous! Do they not know I’m half black? Yeah, I’m half black from the belly-button down! And just to show that’s squashed, here’s a little present for my beautiful, black, female fans (humps air slowly).”
That scene drew a response from Mayweather, who had previously chose to let McGregor’s supposed racial undertones slide. After the Brooklyn press conference, however, “Money” could no longer keep quiet, and spoke up in support of his diverse team (via MMA Fighting):
“Disrespecting my daughter, disrespecting the mother of my daughter, disrespecting black women, calling black people monkeys is totally disrespectful. I have a diverse team. A diverse staff. And when I was young, I may have said some things I shouldn’t have said because I was young. But you live, you learn and you don’t say those things when you get to a certain age because it’s all about growth and maturity.
“Today, he came out today and did it again…I guess when he gets older he’ll look back and say I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
But “Money” wasn’t squeaky-clean in the whole situation, either, as clapped back at McGregor’s racial comments by making an extremely ill-advised homophobic slur at McGregor during the final press conference stop in London yesterday. That pretty much signaled that the entire world tour had devolved into little more than a spectacle for a fight that was already well past that point in the first place; let’s be honest.
And it appears that McGregor knows it as well, as the ultra-popular UFC champion spoke up at the post-press conference media scrum in London via MacLife on Facebook to admit his racially charged jokes didn’t find a home:
According to the megastar, the jokes didn’t play out like he wanted them to, and he was now going to leave it alone, as most ‘realistic’ people would know he is not a bigot:
“It didn’t really hit right. I’m just gonna stay where it is and leave it out. I know who I am as a person. I think most realistic people can look and know.”
So while “The Notorious” insists that anyone who truly knows him knows he is far from racist, that insistence will obviously be questioned by many after this week.
But even though his words will be dissected and disparaged as being focused on skin color, he cautioned his fans and everyone else to realize Mayweather is supposedly trying to turn this into something bigger than it is to sway fans to his favor:
“You can be fooled by him if you want to be fooled by him,” McGregor said. “You know the man’s character, you know his history. He’s trying to sway the people in his favor. I think it was a cheap, little [play]. … I was trying to address something in my own little way. But whatever. It is what it is. I had fun with it last night. If he feels disrespected, well he’s an idiot and then f*ck him as well.”
Finally, McGregor also offered his belief that the entire press conference tour became a game where people were keeping score, one in which he thought he won all four rounds even if the public opinion varies. With that established, McGregor chose to move on and shift his focus to preparing for what matters most – the fight on August 26:
“It became something different than before, like a battle almost, like a verbal type of battle and people were scoring it. I can’t anticipate something like the way it was, like it was going back and forth. But if you’re gonna do that, then f*ck it, let’s do it. I smoked him four rounds, I believe.
“It’s done now, it’s wrapped up. Let’s get ready to fight.”
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