Staples Center crowd gets treated to jabs — and a couple of haymakers — by Mayweather, McGregor

Staples Center crowd gets treated to jabs â€" and a couple of haymakers â€" by Mayweather, McGregor

Floyd Mayweather Jr. let Conor McGregor go, let him unleash all of his creative banter and antics on a stage at Staples Center during the first leg of their international press tour.

There was, after all, a fight to sell. But moreover, Mayweather was building to his own moment.

The 49-0 boxing champion crossed his arms, remained stone-faced and listened Tuesday as Ireland’s McGregor, the UFC’s only simultaneous two-division belt holder, taunted him and gestured for him to approach.

Then, in a scene that observers expect will mirror the Aug. 26 boxing match at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Mayweather let rip an extended berating of McGregor for daring to make his pro boxing debut against a man who retired two years as the sport’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter.

“He has to realize I’ve been here before,” Mayweather told reporters after the raucous appearance in front of more than 11,000 fans.

“I’ve been doing this for years. He’s ready to kill me now. I gave him a little bit of his own medicine. I let him do his talking, and then let him have it. And he didn’t like it.”

McGregor expressed frustration in his session with reporters, blaming Mayweather’s pay-per-view broadcaster of choice, Showtime, for pulling the plug on his microphone as Mayweather spoke while earlier denying McGregor of his walk-in music.

“They can try to do all the little tricks all they want,” McGregor said after predicting on stage that he would knock out Mayweather inside five rounds. “On Aug. 26, this man will be unconscious. He’s too small. He’s too frail.”

As McGregor spoke with the media, Mayweather’s father and trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr., entered the room to mock McGregor’s boxing skill and challenge him to a fight Wednesday while drawing the room’s attention with his own shadow-boxing session.

McGregor had clearly entered a different arena.

“It was a little surprising to see Floyd [Jr.] act the way he did. He’s mellowed as he’s gotten older and you don’t see him engaging in the kind of trash talking he did when he was younger,” said Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president of Showtime. “But at the same time, he’s still a competitor and you can’t really sit up there as a competitor and let Conor’s remarks go unanswered. So, he dug deep and dished it out.”

Mayweather, 40 and returning from a near two-year retirement, opened his time on stage by prompting his supporters, known as The Money Team, by roaring, “All work is what?”

“Easy work!” they responded. He then asked everyone to “point to the easy work,” as he nodded toward a seated McGregor.

Striding proudly around the stage, Mayweather said, “You line those [fighters] up and I’ll knock them down like bowling pins, and on Aug. 26, I’ll knock this [guy] out too.”

At one point, Mayweather produced what he said was the $100-million check from his victory over Manny Pacquiao in 2015.

“Show it to the tax man!” McGregor answered, needling Mayweather because the boxing champion’s attorneys recently asked the IRS to delay payment on a 2015 tax bill until after the fight.

Undeterred, Mayweather chided McGregor for breaking from the UFC to pursue this record purse in boxing.

“I’m an old man. I’m not the same fighter I was 20 years ago … 10 years ago … five years ago … but I know I can beat you,” Mayweather said. “You’re going out on your face, or you’re going out on your back. Which way do you want to go? All you can do is show up, and I’m going to do the rest.”

Mayweather did give McGregor credit for one thing: his role as the fight’s co-salesman. The UFC’s most popular fighter ignited widespread interest after knocking out long-reigning UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo in 13 seconds, then repeatedly knocking down welterweight Nate Diaz and then-lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez last year.

Wearing a red, white and blue gym outfit, Mayweather also sported a hat with the number 48 on it. He was asked why the lid bore that number, when his record is 49-0.

He explained that it was a tribute to his record-setting 48^th fight against Pacquiao, a convincing unanimous-decision victory over the former seven-division champion that generated more than $600 million in revenue from a best-ever 4.6 million pay-per-view buys and $72-million live gate.

“I truly believe I can break my own record; I already own the top three in the sport,” Mayweather said.

UFC President Dana White agreed, noting that with massive MMA audiences in Canada, Europe, Brazil and Australia, “globally, it’s a much bigger fight than Pacquiao.

Tickets, ranging from $500 to $10,000, are expected to go on sale July 24. The HD pay-per-view p rice will be $99.95, the same as Mayweather-Pacquiao.

“I think we’re going to sell a lot of tickets,” Mayweather said. “He’s interesting. I’m interesting. And we gave the fans what they wanted to see.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimespugmire

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