Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor went off the rails when cagefighter McGregor was criticized for trash talking that some considered racist, telling the boxing champ to "dance for me, boy," according to the New York Post. Mayweather ignored it.
The incident happened on Tuesday during a wild first stop of the fight's promotional tour in Los Angeles. Mayweather, the undefeated boxer, will be taking on the MMA champion McGregor in Las Vegas on Aug. 26, with high-definition pay-per-view going for $99.99.
"Dance for me, boy," McGregor told Mayweather during the news conference as he approached the podium, said the Post. "Dance for me, son. Dance for me."
"The racial undertones of the statement are obvious — with the internet immediately seizing on it," said the New York Post's Michael Blaustein, "saying that McGregor had gone too far."
"McGregor's racial taunt will come as no surprise to MMA fans because he's repeatedly used race as a marketing tool in the past," Blaustein added.
Mayweather, though, blew off the comment, telling TMZ Sports that he was not offended by the verbal jab.
"Racist? I don't know what that got to do with race," Mayweather told TMZ Sports. "This is a boxing match. I don't know what that got to do with no racists."
Many on Twitter, though, disagreed.
According to PBS's "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow," unwritten Southern etiquette at the time, African-Americans were expected to address as "Mr." or "Mrs." while whites addressed blacks by their first names, "boy" or "girl," or the n-word. The term remains offensive to some today.
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