WATCH ABOVE: MMA star Ronda Rousey burns Floyd Mayweather at ESPY awards
TORONTO — UFC champion Ronda Rousey — the woman awarded the Best Fighter ESPY Wednesday night — didn’t pull any punches when it came to her fellow nominee, boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, and his domestic violence past.
When presented with the award on the red carpet, she landed this zinger:
“I wonder how Floyd feels being beat by a woman for once.”
Mayweather’s history of battering women is no secret.
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He is “a misogynist. And not just a misogynist, but a batterer, and a serial batterer at that,” Deadspin wrote last year. An “inflicter of domestic violence and the wager of psychological warfare,” as The Atlantic said in a piece ahead of Mayweather’s historic bout against Manny Pacquiao in May.
The fight evidently wasn’t enough to win him the title of Best Fighter. The UFC bantamweight women’s champion also beat out tennis star Serena Williams, skier Lindsey Vonn and three-time NCAA champion Breanna Stewart.
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“I’d like to see you pretend not to know who I am now.”
The war of words between the fighters started several months ago when UFC President Dana White offered his take on what would happen if the two were ever placed in a ring together.
“If Ronda Rousey got her hands on him, she’d ragdoll that guy. Ragdoll him,” White told FOX Sports.
Next up, Rousey will take on the undefeated Bethe Correia on Aug. 1 in Rio de Janeiro. Mayweather, meanwhile, is eyeing a Sept. 12 bout against Andre Berto in what could be his retirement fight.
With files from Elton Hobson, Global News
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