Conor McGregor, the new UFC featherweight champion, challenged the now retired boxer, Floyd Mayweather to a match via Instagram after Mayweather called reactions to McGregor's trash-talking racist. In typical McGregor fashion, he added insult to injury, with an offer to split the profits from the match 80/20 in his favor. Now we just have to wait and see if McGregor's challenge will bring Mayweather out of retirement.
This most recent bout of trash-talking from McGregor comes after a recent Fight Hype interview with Mayweather in which he is asked to expound upon his belief that racism still exists in the boxing sport. In part of his response, the undefeated boxer references McGregor's trash-talking ways saying, "They say he talk a lot of trash and people praise him for it, but when I did it, they say I'm cocky and arrogant. So biased! Like I said before, all I'm saying is this, I ain't racist at all, but I'm telling you racism still exists."
After getting wind of Mayweather's comments, McGregor hit Instagram to inform the former boxer that he needs to lay off using racism to talk about the Irishman's success. According to The Washing Post, the Instagram message reads, "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."
Shortly thereafter, came the challenge in which McGregor offered what he considers a fair split of the profits, 80/20 in his favor. As his reasoning for such a lopsided split, Mcgregor references Mayweather's last fight in which he went up against Andre Berto. This final fight netted the promotion an estimated $31 million between Pay Per View Live and live ticket sales based on a Yahoo Sports report. This was a significant drop in revenue considering he has been known to generate over $400 Million in PPV sales alone.
As yet, Mayweather has not accepted McGregor's challenge, but it was only recently issued, so he still has time to respond.
Based on some fan's social media responses to McGregor's challenge, a showdown between the two epic boxers would be a welcome event. With any luck McGregor and Mayweather will give their what they want. At the least, their future verbal sparring matches should be good entertainment.
I'd pay all monies allocated to watch Connor McGregor kick Floyd Mayweather's head into orbit.
— Paul Madavi (@DrOldskool) January 9, 2016
I would be kind of intrigued to see a Connor Mcgregor Floyd Mayweather fight. — MB32 (@mattBISCEGLIA) January 9, 2016
