Over the Christmas break, while the rest of us were gearing up to ring out the last bit of festivity in our bodies, Floyd Mayweather sat down for an interview with FightHype.com with the main thing on his mind being racism in boxing. The now former pound for pound king has spoken about the issue in the past and many would argue that he has a point.
To back up his belief he pointed to what he sees as the different manner in which the media treats Andre Ward particularly in relation to the likes of Gennady Golovkin who Mayweather says only looks good 'with a stationary target in front of him'.
I can’t believe they got Andre Ward ranked number 4 in the pound-for-pound list without Andre Ward losing a fight, he has to be number 2. I mean, he wins his fights not in good fashion, but in great fashion, and they have him at number 4?
They got some guy ranked number 9, I don’t really know his full name, so I don’t want to be disrespectful, but they got a Japanese guy ranked number 9. They got Andre Ward number 4, and this guy that’s ranked number 9, we don’t even know who he is. I truly believe that racism still exists in the sport of boxing.
To push his point further still, and to sport as a whole, Mayweather moved on to MMA and the two darlings of the UFC, Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor. After comparing the respective career trajectories of Rousey and Laila Ali, Mayweather decided to analyse McGregor's personality in relation to his own with the ultimate point being that McGregor is praised for his confidence and brashness whereas Mayweather was constantly berated for it. According to the former pound for pound king, that's something that can be put down to racism.
I don't really know the McGregor guy, never seen him fight. I heard his name actually from one of the runners that works for our company; a little kid named Ken Hopkins, he's a runner and takes care of a lot of the daily business. Whatever we need, he takes care of. He's a cool little kid, I like him, and he does MMA.
He told me about the guy McGregor. 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.
We'll that up to you to decide whether that argument holds up or not but as USA Today have pointed out, Mayweather is not exactly a poster boy for racial harmony considering his previous outbursts about Manny Pacquiao of whom he once suggested 'we’re going to cook that little yellow chump'. He continued that particular rant with the promise that 'I'll make that mother fucker make me a sushi roll and cook me some rice'.
