Conor McGregor acknowledges racial jokes ‘didn’t really hit right’ in Brooklyn

Conor McGregor has hoping to squash the whispers of racism around him in his own way Thursday night — by joking about it on stage. It didn’t work out quite the way he would have liked, McGregor acknowledged Friday at the MayMac World Tour press stop in London.

“It didn’t really hit right,” McGregor said (h/t MacLife). “I’m just gonna stay where it is and leave it out. I know who I am as a person. I think most realistic people can look and know.”

McGregor believes any calls that he is a racist are “f*cking ridiculous,” he said. The Irishman drew headlines earlier in the week when he called Floyd Mayweather “boy” and told him to dance for him.

In an apparent attempt to add levity, McGregor joked Thursday night in Brooklyn that he couldn’t possibly be racist because he was half black — “from the belly button down.” He then did a gyrating dance for all his “beautiful black female fans.”

The routine fell flat at Barclays Center and McGregor seemed to realize that Friday. However, McGregor felt like Mayweather using the calls of racism and disrespecting women (particularly Mayweather’s daughter and the mother of his daughter) was a “dirty play,” because he didn’t talk about Mayweather’s past criminal history.

“You can be fooled by him if you want to be fooled by him,” McGregor said. “You know the man’s character, you know his history. He’s trying to sway the people in his favor. I think it was a cheap, little [play]. … I was trying to address something in my own little way. But whatever. It is what it is. I had fun with it last night. If he feels disrespected, well he’s an idiot and then f*ck him as well.”

McGregor was alluding to Mayweather’s 2011 domestic violence conviction. The all-time great boxer served 87 days in jail in 2012 on domestic abuse charges. McGregor did not bring that up once on stage despite all the trash talk this week. Reporters asked him about that Friday in London and McGregor said he didn’t feel the need to do it.

“We had fun up there as well,” McGregor said. “I didn’t need to bring certain things up. There was enough for me to have fun with. I’m not trying to put someone’s dirty business. I’m here to fight now, so fuck all that other shit.”

London was the last stop on the tour that began Tuesday in Los Angeles, went to Toronto on Wednesday and then Brooklyn on Thursday. The boxing match will be Aug. 26 in Las Vegas. McGregor felt like he took a clean sweep if he were scoring the MayMac World Tour.

“It became something different than before, like a battle almost, like a verbal type of battle and people were scoring it,” McGregor said. “I can’t anticipate something like the way it was, like it was going back and forth. But if you’re gonna do that, then f*ck it, let’s do it. I smoked him four rounds, I believe.”

The tour is over and now McGregor, the UFC lightweight champion, will head to Las Vegas to continue his training camp.

“It’s done now, it’s wrapped up,” he said. “Let’s get ready to fight.”