Big Fight is Today, But Does Floyd Mayweather Deserve This?

Today is a huge weekend for sports - possibly the biggest single day for sports in North America, if not the world, for this year. How big? You have the NFL Draft continuing, as well as the NHL and NBA playoffs. The Kentucky Derby will be played out, and baseball continues this weekend as well. Overseas, soccer/football leagues will feature big matches as well.

Those things alone make it already a huge sports day and weekend, yet all of those will remain in the shadow of this weekend's biggest event" the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. This was the one truly huge fight that the boxing world has been waiting for such a very long time.

Yet, it is not without some controversy, to say the least. First of all, these fighters are both at the tail end of their careers. This fight really should have happened years ago, perhaps back in 2009 or so, let's say. It might still be a truly huge fight, but there is this sense among some that the fight is overrated.

That is one controversy, but it is far from the only controversy. If you want to see this fight, even on pay-per-view television, it will put you out $100. The sheer money involved is unbelievable, staggering! Floyd Mayweather alone will walk away with $150 million from this fight, making him the highest paid athlete in the entire world!

Which itself brings us to another aspect of the financial question, because Mayweather will try to convince anyone who will listen that he is worth every penny of that money. Yes, he loves money so much, that he took that as his nickname. "Money" Mayweather. There he is, on an exclusive interview from his posh house, showing off all the expensive cars that he apparently rarely drives. There he is, talking about all of the money that he has made, that he will claim to have "earned" every penny of.

Don't get me wrong: he is undeniably a great and talented boxer inside of the ring. It's the man that he is outside of the ring who really gets under my skin. It is the man that he is outside of boxing is a terrible human being, and it amazes me just how much he has gotten away with. In particular, about the domestic abuse cases that he clearly is guilty of.

A little more on that in a moment.

But even when it comes to his personality regarding the sport of boxing, he just oozes a sense of arrogance and immaturity that any halfway reasonable individual gets turned off by. He brashly and shamelessly puts on display his own brattiness and sense of entitlement, that it makes it hard, if not downright impossible, to like the guy, and pull for him in the ring.

Over and over again, he talks about being the greatest boxer in the history of the sport, his accomplishments in his own mind outweighing those of other boxers who traditionally have been in the discussion as the greatest fighters of all time. Boxers such as Muhammad Ali, and Sugar Ray Leonard.

But those boxers never backed away from fights against the best in the business, against their greatest rivals, the way Mayweather clearly did with Pacquiao. There was a point when it seemed that this fight would never happen, and it had everything to do with Mayweather's hestitations, as he found every excuse to not have the fight happen.

I do not recall any stories of either Leonard or Ali backing away from a fight, or finding excuses why the fight should not take place. Ali did not try and wiggle his way out of fights against the likes of Frazier, or Foreman or Norton or Shavers. Leonard did not try to excuse himself from fights against Hagler or Hearns or Duran.

Yet, there was Mayweather, listing a number of demands before a fight with Pacquiao could ever take place. That was clearly the fight that the boxing world wanted, but he turned his back on it to pursue another fight, than amazingly had the gall to suggest that this back-up plan fight was the one that the public has been itching for!

Such arrogance, and after a display that some might consider cowardice! Yet, this man claims to be the best of all time?

Really?

His behavior in this regard is so extreme, that it has even drawn the ire of other notable boxers, including Mike Tyson, who is known to voice his opinions regularly. Tyson certainly did not hold back this time, either, and took aim at Mayweather.

"He's very delusional," Tyson told Undisputed Champion Network. "He can't listen. If he was anywhere near that realm of greatness with Ali, he'd be able to take his children to school by himself. He can't take his children to school by himself and you're talking about he's great? Greatness is not guarding himself from the people. Greatness is being accepted by the people."

Tyson went on to add:

"He's a little scared man. He's a very small, scared man."

But, like most of the rest of us, Tyson had to admit that his own personal feelings about the man do not detract from Mayweather's talents in the right. He is undeniably a great fighter, and Tyson revealed a little bit about what he thinks will happen in the fight itself (although he did not predict a winner, so far as I know):

"It's gonna be an interesting fight," Tyson said. "At first I took Pacquiao … you know, this is gonna be interesting. I know it's gonna be a good fight regardless of who wins. It's going to be a good fight, both guys are going to be up for this fight. I think it's going to be a knockout; I don't think it's going to go the distance."

Is it not interesting that Tyson, a man who himself is no stranger to controversy based on his behavior, feels a bit turned off by Mayweather? The thing is that Tyson has a likable side to him. Yes, he certainly has had issues that the media made a big thing of. It seemed, for quite a while, that Tyson literally could not get away with a thing that he did, without the media blasting him for it.

Just the opposite of Mayweather, who gets away with things time and time again. He keeps getting away with ridiculous, absurd behavior to the point that it almost feels like he is the Teflon Boxer.

Because here is the other aspect of his being considered the "greatest ever": the man really is a piece of garbage. He does not merely leave his fighting inside of the ring, but has been charged with domestic violence against his woman...repeatedly. While Ali went to prison, and was harshly criticized for it, because of his adamant refusal to take part in a war that he did not believe in, Mayweather gets away with a real crime. Not just once, or twice. But over and over again.

That's what money, Mayweather's obsession, has the power to do. Like other athletes with star power, such as "Big Ben" Roethlisberger and Adrian Petersen, he was able to use his big money and public profile to essentially make an unpleasant controversy simply go away. In the case of Mayweather, this is so true, that it sometimes seems like nobody is taking him to task for his record of domestic violence.

And, rather characteristically, Mayweather flaunts this, too. He almost seems to rub it in everyone's face that he got away with domestic abuse, in ways that men with less money and power could never do. When asked point blank about what his legacy of beating on women would mean, Mayweather outright changed the topic, answering that he felt that this would be a great fight, that nobody should miss it. Without shame, he answered a serious question about his own criminal behavior by what amounted to an advertisement, to promote his own interests. In other words, to focus exclusively on money.

By contrast, Ali went to prison, and many people hated him for it, because he took such a strong stand for what he believed in. But Ali was outspoken and intelligent, speaking on the key issues of the world that he lived in, and doing so in a thoughtful and brave manner. He had values, and he was willing to lose almost everything at the time in order to do what he felt was right. That is no small part of why he is considered by many to be the greatest of all time. It was not just his accomplishments inside of the ring, which were formidable - probably more formidable than Mayweather's career achievements. And Mayweather does not seem to take a vocal stand on anything, except his own commercial interests. The only subject that really interests Mayweather is Mayweather. Oh, and the money that he seems to think gives him license to do anything, and get away with it.

Mayweather deserves to have his legacy tarnished and, frankly, probably deserves to be in jail, and for very legitimate reasons. Now, that would be a serious statement against domestic violence.

Instead, he is set to make $150 million for one night's work.

Not bad, huh? It will certainly add to his already legendary legacy of getting away with all sorts of nonsense that probably nobody else could get away with.

Now, I am no fan of pay-per-view events, and can honestly say that I have never in my life paid for such an event. It is the wrong message, and reinforces more such hardcore greed and excess in the future, much like boxing fans in general, and Mayweather fans in particular, essentially reinforce Mayweather's unacceptable, criminal behavior by simply pushing aside unpleasant realities, such as that Mayweather is guilty of domestic abuse repeatedly, and simply focusing in on the man's impressive, unblemished record inside of the boxing ring.

I personally know some huge Mayweather fans, and it amazes me, to the point of almost being staggering, the extent to which they ignore these unpleasant facts about their man. They are not bad guys, but they literally make no effort to hold him accountable in their own eyes for the crimes that he has committed. That unconditional support essentially is the reason that Mayweather keeps getting a pass on his criminal behavior, and his swaggering arrogance. Paying money for this fight, or any fight that Mayweather is a part of, is enabling the man to keep doing what he is doing, and to keep getting away with it, to boot. To be above the law, as well as the court of public opinion, and to flaunt all of his disgusting excesses on top of it.

To me, that's just not right. And while I was unlikely to order pay-per-view in order to see this fight, it seems particularly outrageous to me that so many people, apparently will pay huge sums of their hard earned money, to see such a low quality human being take the ring later tonight. Just on principle alone, I would not want anything to do with this fight.

That does not mean that I do not care what happens in this fight. Although I have my suspicions that Mayweather might find a way to win this fight on points, I will admit to really hoping that Mayweather walks out of that ring with his first loss, preferably by knockout. Even better would be a very memorable, spectacular knockout, one that people would watch again and again, and which would inescapably be tied to Mayweather's legacy inside of the boxing ring.

But that said, I hope that Mayweather's legacy outside of the ring catches up with him. Because while the man has a technically perfect record inside of the ring, his record outside of it is shameful, and he deserves for this huge shame that he has placed on himself to be what truly defines him.





Here is the article on Tyson's thoughts about Mayweather that I got the quotes used in this blog entry from:


Mike Tyson rips Floyd Mayweather over 'greatest ever' talk By Cody Brunner, April 30, 2015:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/boxing/mike-tyson-rips-floyd-mayweather-over--greatest-ever--talk-014023047-boxing.html