Conor McGregor took to his Facebook page on Friday to address a number of topics, from his year-end awards, recent comments made by Floyd Mayweather, the current controversy over an image he posted with a gun on Instagram, and to his expected fight with Rafael dos Anjos.
The comments from Mayweather drew McGregor’s lengthiest response, as the Irishman took issue with Mayweather saying the reactions to their respective trash talk was a sign of the racism that still exists in combat sport. Here’s McGregor’s full response:
1. Rolling Stone, thank you for putting me as one of your top 25 sex symbols of 2015! My Mother will be delighted and proud!
2. ESPN, FOX, BT Sports, MMA Fighting, Yahoo, MMA Junkie and Sherdog thank you all for awarding me fighter of the year 2015!
I appreciate all the hardworking media and their love and commitment to the sport is truly valued.
3. Fighters Only MMA Awards, thank you for the nominations for Fighter of the Year, KO of the Year, International Fighter of the year.I will be in Las Vegas to attend the event and collect all my awards.
4. Floyd Mayweather, don’t ever bring race into my success again. I am an Irishman. My people have been oppressed our entire existence. And still very much are. I understand the feeling of prejudice. It is a feeling that is deep in my blood.
In my family’s long history of warfare there was a time where just having the name ‘McGregor’ was punishable by death.
Do not ever put me in a bracket like this again.
If you want we can organise a fight no problem.
I will give you a fair 80/20 split purse in my favour seen as your last fight bombed at every area of revenue.
At 27 years of age I now hold the key to this game.
The game answers to me now.
5. Media instigators/An Garda Siochana.
I apologise for having the air-soft in public. I was simply rehearsing for a potential upcoming film role.
I understand that the more traffic a story can get the more revenue it generates. So I understand and respect that the media must create these stories and these situations even if at times it is at other people’s expense.
We’ve all got to eat. And I eat well.
So I will not complain.
6. My next fight.
What can I say, it’s just another night of easy work for me.
I don’t just own the game. I run it too.
McGregor, having captured the UFC Featherweight Championship last month, is now expected to make his attempt at become a simultaneous two-division champion in the UFC, meeting Lightweight Champ Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 197.
Penick’s Analysis: Really good responses from McGregor overall, but while there’s certainly a history of Irish discrimination, that doesn’t really negate Mayweather’s point, and goes back significantly further in history than what’s still happening today. Black athletes across the board are scrutinized much more heavily, and criticized at a much greater level than their white star counterparts. We’ve seen it in MMA consistently, and Mayweather absolutely has salient points regarding how the mainstream and the public has responded to comments made by black athletes compared to white athletes. McGregor’s got his own history, and as an Irishman had a very different upbringing from which he can reference, but that again doesn’t make Mayweather wrong. Regardless, his attempts to put a fight together with Mayweather won’t result in anything, so it’s ultimately pointless.
[Photo (c) Gary A. Vasquez via USA Today Sports]
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