Mayweather Hit With Backlash After Calling McGregor a 'F**got'

By Keith Idec

Less than 24 hours after criticizing Conor McGregor for going too far during their press conference in Brooklyn, Mayweather called McGregor a “f**got” during the final stop of their press tour Friday night in London.

Like McGregor, Mayweather has cursed throughout a four-city, four-day promotional tour that became increasingly crass by the day. Before Friday night, it was mostly McGregor that drew criticism from mainstream media outlets for saying offensive things earlier this week in Los Angeles, Toronto and New York.

Mayweather was immediately condemned far and wide Friday, however, for using a homophobic slur.

“Yeah, we gonna talk about this p*ssy,” Mayweather yelled at McGregor before a jam-packed crowd at Wembley Arena. “You punk! You f**got! You ho!”

McGregor fired back, “You’re dragging along, mate. Sit down and shut the f*** up!”

Athlete Ally, an organization that promotes LGBT acceptance in sports, was among the organizations that criticized Mayweather’s slur Friday. Hudson Taylor, Athlete Ally’s executive director, told TMZ Sports that the organization also was bothered by a representative for Mayweather saying that Mayweather called McGregor a “faggot” because McGregor called him a “monkey” at some point during the tour.

“The response given by Mayweather’s representative is equally troubling,” Taylor told TMZ Sports. “If Mayweather truly has the utmost respect for the LGBT community, he wouldn’t resort to using slurs that perpetuate anti-LGBT stigma and hate.

“Resorting to homophobic and racial epithets is shameful no matter how or why one uses them.”

Mayweather lambasted McGregor the previous night following their press conference at Barclays Center for making racist and misogynistic comments on stage (https://www.boxingscene.com/mcgregor-calling-me-racist-ridiculous-mayweather-responds--118495).

The vulgar Irishman’s antics Thursday night included asking Mayweather’s 17-year-old daughter, Iyanna, to sing for him on stage and thrusting his pelvis back and forth as “a little present for my beautiful, black female fans.”

“I think that disrespecting my daughter, disrespecting the mother of my daughter [Melissa Brim], disrespecting black women, calling black people monkeys is totally disrespectful,” Mayweather said, without specifying when McGregor made a “monkey” remark. “I have a diverse team, a diverse staff. And when I was young, I may have said some things that I shouldn’t have said when I was young. But we live, we learn and you don’t say those things once you get to a certain age because it’s all about growth and maturity. But it’s total disrespect.

“Today he came out and did it again. You do not disrespect – I don’t care if it’s white women, black women, white men, black men, Latina or Latino, you don’t disrespect people. To get respect, you must give respect. We live and we learn, and like I said before, as we get older, we grow and we get wisdom and we get maturity. And I guess when he gets older, he’ll probably look back and say, ‘You know, I shouldn’t have said that.’ ”

Las Vegas’ Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) and Dublin’s McGregor (21-3, 18 KOs in MMA) will now head back to their respective training camps to complete preparation for their August 26 boxing match at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (Showtime Pay-Per-View).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.