Is Mayweather out of control?
Floyd Mayweather Jr. just isn’t making many fans these days. Within the last week and a half, here are some of great things the number two pound-for-pound fighter has done with his time: released a racist rant against Manny Pacquiao, apologizing unconvincingly for said rant, and been arrested for grand larceny related to domestic abuse. Maybe he’s trying to win a different kind of title, for world’s dumbest sports celebrity.
As Dan Rafael of ESPN notes, Mayweather’s gags have certainly won him attention, but it’s been one-sidedly negative. It’s been more winningly negative than a Mayweather bout itself. But will the costs be for all of these antics?
“Seems to me,” speculates Rafael, “that Mayweather, because he is surrounded by nobody who will hold him accountable for his actions or tell him no, thinks he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, just because he's a famous fighter who makes a lot of money when he decides to fight.”
One need only take a momentary peep on Mayweather’s Twitter account to confirm this. All the guy does is brandish ridiculous pictures of himself holding stacks of cash and spreading it out on Gucci check-out tables. But how long will it last? How long will Mayweather continue to be ridiculous?
For one, there’s already signs his armour has significant chinks. The rant directed Pacquiao’s way was one of them. The first and second rule of a real-world feud is that you never apologize. Mayweather’s comments still would have come off as completely bigoted had he not have apologized, because they were, but at least they would have looked like hard measures of emotion from a guy who seems to only care about himself. But apologizing made him seem indecisive, at the will of the media, and grandly unslick for a guy known for his smoothness in the ring.
But more than any of this, Mayweather was arrested Friday, for larceny related to domestic abuse. His current or former girlfriend Josie Harris claimed he assaulted her and threatened to take her life due to a dispute. If it's true, this can hardly be challenged an as indicator that Mayweather has all but lost his marbles. Filthy rich and with no one to put him in his place, as Rafael says, Mayweather seems to be living on another planet.
It’s a fun ride and there’s unlimited cash resources, but who can say how long that will last? Considering the history of boxing’s money-making poster boys and Mayweather’s habits, Rafael says: “Who wants to bet, though, that in, say, 10 years, Mayweather will be broke? Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield made much more than Mayweather and look what happened to them. When it happens to Mayweather, at least he can always click on the video and watch himself playing childishly with piles of money.”
Following an alleged domestic abuse incident and a racist video, what company is going to have the bravado to sign this guy on again? It seems as though “Money” just lost a lot of money for saying and doing some things that probably could have been completely avoided. Rafael says: “He has earned lots of money outside the ring, working as a company spokesman for AT&T, for example, although that deal is over. But what corporation in its right mind would again associate itself with such a classless, clueless person who has become a poster child for ignorance and is the very worst of today's coddled professional athlete?
Is bouncing back from professional athlete h**l even possible for Floyd at this point?
It may just be that the best thing to happen to him at this point is to loss. Maybe that would set him right. Interesting to be a guy for whom winning can only a curse.
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