By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Conor McGregor would’ve loved to have headed from Brooklyn to Dublin late Thursday night for the final press conference on this whirlwind world tour.
The proud Irishman must settle for London because neither he nor UFC president Dana White could convince Floyd Mayweather Jr. to travel to McGregor’s homeland to promote their August 26 boxing match in Las Vegas. An Irish reporter suggested after their press conference Thursday night at Barclays Center that a Mayweather-McGregor press conference could’ve attracted 100,000 fans in Dublin.
McGregor almost sounded as if he understood why Mayweather wouldn’t include Dublin on a press tour that’ll span four cities (Los Angeles, Toronto, New York and London) and three countries (the United States, Canada and England) in four days.
“I don’t know, the Irish are crazy,” a smiling McGregor said. “You’re Irish. You know this. It was an agreement that if one was out, then the other was out. So if we had to go to Ireland, then we would’ve had to go to Vegas and maybe his other place in Detroit or something like that.”
Detroit is more than a two-hour drive from Mayweather’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mayweather, 40, has resided in Las Vegas for more than 20 years.
McGregor also conceded that spending four days screaming obscenities at each other should be more than enough to sell a 12-round, 154-pound boxing match that undoubtedly has piqued the public’s curiosity. The tour for their Showtime Pay-Per-View main event will conclude with a press conference Friday night at Wembley Arena in London.
“Four of them is plenty,” McGregor said. “He’s been saying the same stuff over and over. Don’t get me wrong, it’s like a rap concert out there. It’s absolutely amazing. It’s a great experience, but four is plenty. All over the world, we go face-to-face, we say what we have to say, and then it’s fight time. We’ll do the last one in London, and then that’s it.”
White would’ve enjoyed another trip to Dublin to promote one of McGregor’s fights. The UFC went to McGregor’s hometown to promote his career-changing, 13-second knockout of Brazilian star Jose Aldo in December 2015.
“I don’t think they were crazy about going to Ireland,” White said before the press conference Thursday night. “I had to push for London, too, just to get to London. For a guy like Floyd, you’re gonna go into Ireland and, you know, what hotel are you gonna stay at? You know what I mean? I get it. I totally get it.
“London is more – I don’t know if it’s gonna be neutral territory for Floyd, but it’s definitely not landing in Dublin and staying at one of the hotels in Dublin and have, you know, it would’ve been tough to pull that one off. But last time we went on the world tour with Jose, we went to Dublin. It was incredible.”
After Friday’s final promotional stop, Mayweather (49-0, 26 KOs) and McGregor (21-3, 18 KOs in MMA) will return to their respective training camps to continue preparing for a fight set to take place six weeks from Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
