14th June 2017 – it may not be a date that you will recall of the top of your head, but this was the date Conor McGregor announced that he would make his professional boxing debut against arguably the best boxer of all time, Floyd Mayweather.
The fight itself created incredible hype, but a lot of people were excited at the prospect of McGregor being back on the microphone with his usual quick-witted, hilarious and entertaining trash talk.
A press tour was announced last week taking place in four cities; Los Angeles, Toronto, New York and finally London. The tickets for the London leg went on offer at no cost today with ten thousand tickets snapped up in a matter of minutes.
Late on Tuesday night, the pair met for the first time at the Staples Center and after musical performances from the likes of Aloe Blacc and some rather boring, dull words from promoters, McGregor took to the microphone.
“Baby, we did it!” were the first words out of the Irishman’s mouth, to a loud cheer from the very much McGregor-heavy crowd.
The UFC lightweight champion added: “This is a limited set of rules, it makes it half a fight, a quarter of a fight” before referring to his suit, “How does the suit look? If you zoom in on the pin stripes, they say f*** you!”.
He moved on to the birth of his son, Conor Jr before leaving the microphone stating: “Shout out to my little son at home. He is my motivation now, to set him up for life”.
Floyd Mayweather then took to the stage with a rather cheesy chant of “Hard work… dedication” repeatedly to a handful of the crowd, before saying: “Put me in the ring, or the octagon, I’m kicking a**”.
McGregor argued the point as to fighting in an octagon, with it being the Irishman coming to boxing rather than Mayweather transitioning into mixed martial arts. After pacing around the stage, Floyd told Conor “If you want 8-ounce gloves I’ll do that. If you want 4-ounce gloves I’ll do that”.
The American then labelled McGregor as “Mr Tapout” referencing his submission defeat to Nate Diaz at UFC 196. He then told McGregor: “You’ll be leaving in one of two ways, out on your face, or out on your back”.
The fighters then interchanged in a deep face off, lasting for a few minutes with both fighters talking to one another continuously. They have to do the press conference again tomorrow in Toronto, Canada before moving on to New York and to London at the SSE Arena on Friday.
It may be fair to say McGregor got the victory in Los Angeles, but will it continue across the entire tour?
Watch the entire press conference here:
