Conor McGregor Rips Floyd Mayweather Fight Ref, Says He Had 'Vendetta'

Conor McGregor has once again publicly criticized referee Robert Byrd, saying he had a "vendetta" when calling his matchup against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

"Why did he not give (Mayweather) instruction? Why was he staring at me? He had a vendetta against me straight off the bat. Early exchanges in the tie up, instead of just separating he would reach around and pull me away," McGregor said Friday night in Glasgow, Scotland, per Peter Carroll of MMA Fighting.

"That takes energy away from me. I started getting—not paranoid—but I just started analyzing the whole thing a bit deeper. I felt like I got the short end of the stick here."

McGregor lost to Mayweather via 10th-round TKO in their August prizefight. The reigning face of UFC handled himself well for his first competitive boxing match but tired as the fight went along and opened the door for Mayweather to take over.

McGregor insinuated he did not believe Byrd trusted him in the ring and was unnecessarily rough when handling him when trying to break clenches.

"When we came face to face and we were doing the rules thing, he was only staring at me. I'm looking at him staring at me and I could see in my peripheral vision that he was looking at me and not looking at Floyd," he said.

"I was going to say, 'He's fighting as well, mate. Give him the f--king rules. I don't know, what was going on there?

"Every time we tied he literally wrestled me off him. It is what it is, I knew I wasn't going to get a fair shake out there."

McGregor was behind on all three judges' scorecards before he was knocked out, so odds are he would not have won the fight, "fair shake" or not.