Mayweather will rely on the ref to keep ‘extremely dirty’ McGregor in check

You've probably heard some variation of this talking to your buddies by the water cooler: sure, Floyd Mayweather is probably going to dismantle Conor McGregor in their upcoming boxing match. But wouldn't it be cool if Conor suddenly pulled out a spinning head kick and knocked Floyd out? Heh, oh man. That would be wild. It would also cost McGregor a huge chunk of his $100 million plus purse - somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% if Floyd Mayweather is to be believed.

But there are less obvious ways to fight dirty, and the potential for a rough and tumble fight is high following the Nevada Athletic Commission's decision to have Robert Byrd ref the bout. Byrd is known for letting fighters go at it, opening the door for Conor to get away with some bad behavior. But if Floyd was worried about the ref being too passive, he didn't show it during a media conference call earlier today.

"I truly believe the ref is gonna do his job," Mayweather said. "The referee's job is to make sure the fight is, that he's keeping the bout clean. And I wanna, let's put on a hell of a fight. Like I've said on numerous occasions building up to this fight: I'm coming straight ahead. So he don't got nothing to worry about. I look forward to following the Queensbury rules of boxing, and I'm pretty sure he looks forward to following the Queensbury rules of boxing."

"He had [boxing referee] Joe Cortez in his training camp, which is a great thing. Even though he had Joe Cortez in his training camp, I still saw him doing, being extremely dirty. But my job is not to worry about the referee. My job is to go out there and fight, and let the referee do his job."

Boxing purists have been up in arms over sparring footage from McGregor's camp that showed the UFC lightweight champion pushing down on his opponent's head, using rabbit punches, and other iffy behavior in the clinch. According to UFC president Dana White, McGregor won all 12 rounds in a spar against Paulie Malignaggi, but was also docked two points in the process.

So what do you think, Maniacs? Is this going to be a dirty grind of a fight or is Mayweather going to show McGregor who the real King Ghost is?