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30th Aug 2017

The reason Floyd Mayweather wore a balaclava to the ring on Saturday night

He wasn't trying to keep warm

Ben Kiely

Just when you had your cynical friends convinced this wasn’t a circus sideshow… boom, Floyd Mayweather’s balaclava makes an appearance.

There was a lot of confusion surrounding Floyd Mayweather’s balaclava as the boxing legend made that walk to the ring to box Conor McGregor.

Although everyone was expecting something special from the showman who had walked out alongside Justin Bieber and Lil Wayne for previous bouts, his interesting choice of attire still caught a lot of people off guard.

For those brief moments he was seen sporting what Americans call a ‘ski mask’ it was all anyone tuning in could talk about.

https://twitter.com/ClaireEubank/status/901657518027497473

Anyone who knows how calculated and clever Mayweather is as a promoter instantly realised there was a reason behind the madness. He didn’t do it because his face his cold but rather, it was a late, late warning to McGregor and his hordes of supporters.

He was about to rob them all blind.

Boxing coach Angelo Reyes, who has known Mayweather for years, revealed on the Fight Society podcast that the stunt was an ode to the 1995 bank robbery movie Dead Presidents. He added more information to what had already been said to Fight Hype regarding Money’s headgear.

“To us in the boxing culture, we were kind of laughing about it because it’s Floyd Mayweather’s ode to the movie ‘Dead Presidents,’ Where he put the ski mask on because it’s a bank robbery. Basically, he was saying it was a heist. Like Conor actually believed he could beat Floyd Mayweather and all that happened was he got fooled into the biggest pay-per-view, the biggest payday opportunity of all time.

“That’s why he put on the ski mask, which I thought was pretty awesome.”

Those who bought into McGregor’s unrivalled self-belief would have been left bitterly disappointed by the 10th round TKO, but you can’t say you weren’t warned… even if you weren’t aware of the warning at the time.