13 days stand between us and the merciful conclusion to the Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather farce, and things are only going to get even more ridiculous in the final two weeks leading into the fight. Out of sparring partners to anger, McGregor decided it was time to tackle accusations of racism that have dogged him since the insane run of press conferences that kicked off the pre-fight hype.
During a series of new interviews, McGregor denied that he made any sort of racist remarks to Mayweather, and tried to tear down Mayweather's character in an attempt to exonerate himself. Speaking to ESPN, McGregor compared Mayweather to a rat and a weasel for what he perceived as an attempt to manipulate things he said.
"He knows there's no racism, his father knows, [Leonard] Ellerbee knows, ask these people. He said I labeled him a monkey, I never once in my life labeled him or any African American a monkey," said McGregor. "If I was to label him as any animal, it would be the rat or the weasel, because that's a rat or a weasel move, trying to manipulate someone's words, and trying to create something that's not even there, and on such a sensitive subject. He's a man that beats his wife in front of his kid, he's the dirt of the dirt."
McGregor doubled down on that sentiment during an extended interview with MMA Fighting, though he toned down the rhetoric a little bit, again focusing on Mayweather's own history.
"It’s a weak move on his part to try and even instigate something, and something so sensitive," said McGregor. "But that’s the individual he is. He’s a man who beats his wife in front of his kid. What can I say?"
Mayweather has really played up the racist angle to try to win fans over during the pre-fight process. During an August interview with ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, he even said he would be fighting for, "all the blacks around the world" when he gets into the ring with McGregor.
It would be a little easier to believe McGregor's claim that he's not racist if he didn't have a history of saying messed up shit to his opponents. Let's set aside the things he said to Mayweather for a second—though saying "Dance for me, boy!" does not require a lot of interpretation—and focus on other things on the record from years past.
In February 2016, McGregor was gearing up for a fight against Nate Diaz, and resorted to the same bluster he has employed against Mayweather. McGregor called Diaz, "a little cholo gangster from the hood," an epithet that was soundly criticized at the time. Blame the bad blood between he and Diaz if you want, but McGregor would derisively call Diaz a "lanky, ugly, Mexican southpaw" before their second fight in 2016, despite Diaz being born and raised in America.
This isn't limited to his dust ups with Diaz and Mayweather, either. In 2015, McGregor mocked Jose Aldo's home country of Brazil, and at best made culturally insensitive remarks about his opponent's country of origin. "If this was a different time, I would invade his favela on horseback, and would kill anyone who wasn't fit to work," McGregor said at the time.
The track record for McGregor is pretty terrible, so he doesn't really deserve the benefit of the doubt. And it's worth mentioning—neither does Mayweather when it comes to his history of domestic violence. Add onto the fact that Mayweather has had to come out and apologize for homophobic slurs said to McGregor, and neither one of these guys has a leg to stand on in the morality department, even if they want to convince you they're the knight in shining armor fans crave.
Let's just get these guys in the ring already and end this nonsense. The sooner we can put this ugly and overdone spectacle behind us, the better.
