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MMA

11th Jan 2017

Conor McGregor just got really personal as war of words with Floyd Mayweather intensifies

Below the belt?

Darragh Murphy

Conor McGregor is certainly not backing down in his attempts to secure the biggest payday of his career against one of the greatest boxers of all time.

We’re all very accustomed to the well thought-out sound bites and braggadocio-laden quotes that ‘The Notorious’ uses to get inside the heads of his upcoming opponents in the Octagon.

But we may just have been treated to perhaps his most personal piece of trash talk thus far as the Irishman took aim at Floyd Mayweather in a succinct but obvious swipe on Wednesday night.

Earlier in the day, Mayweather took to ESPN’s First Take to insist that he wanted the super-fight to come to light and explained how he was willing to offer McGregor a guaranteed $15 million for the bout.

“I don’t really know how much money he has made before,” Mayweather said. “I’m pretty sure he hasn’t even made $10 million in an MMA bout but we are willing to give him $15 million and then we can talk about splitting the percentage, the back-end percentage on pay-per-view, but of course we’re the A-side.”

But McGregor has hit back with four short words, with his evening post reading “Call me C.J Watson!”

Now, for anyone that doesn’t know who C.J. Watson is, allow us to fill you in.

In 2010, Mayweather was involved in a domestic violence incident with his then-girlfriend Josie Harris, an act which saw him the boxer imprisoned for two months.

Mayweather appeared to have attempted to rationalise the incident during a 2013 documentary entitled ’30 Days In May’ and that didn’t sit well with Harris, who subsequently agreed to speak to Yahoo Sports! to tell her side of the story.

It was in that interview that new information came to light as Harris explained how Mayweather had grown infuriated after learning of a text message exchange between her and NBA guard C.J. Watson.

So essentially McGregor is comparing himself to the man who Mayweather’s ex-partner was accused of cheating on Mayweather with.

Savage!

That issue is understandably going to be a sensitive one for Mayweather and it is understandable McGregor is going to want to hit his rival where it hurts.

And while the seemingly cryptic message was lost on many of the Irishman’s followers, plenty were able to see precisely what he was doing.