The recent new regarding Floyd’s refusal to talk to the media has created a mild controversy. A number of members of the Filipino media were offended and felt that it was a type of discrimination. Even Bob Arum was upset at the situation. .
Bob Arum was quoted by Dennis Guillermo of Filipino Sports Examiner as saying, “To me it borders on racism and nationalism, this is absolutely not the American way. As an American I have to apologize to all the Filipino people and the Filipino media. This is absolutely outrageous.”
I don’t believe Mayweather is a racist, but if he indeed instructed her publicist to banned the Filipino media from talking to him, then it was certainly an act of discrimination and cowardliness.
Until the press conference in LA, the name of Manny Pacquiao seemed to always be at the tip of his tongue, until of course when it was time for him to face the Filipino media. It’s even hypocritical for Floyd to suggest that he doesn’t want to talk about Pacquiao, when he has badmouthed the Filipino icon numerous times while promoting his fight with Mayweather.
Now an article by Paula Duffy in Examiner.com
” I at no time refused them the opportunity to speak with Floyd Mayweather. They were welcome to go down to where he was with the fans and wait to see if he would give them an interview. But he would have told them what he has told many other media members this week about keeping to the topic at hand.”
But Jeff De Guzman who were with the other Filipino media members when the incident happened confirmed that Kelly did inform them that no Filipino media are allowed to interview Floyd Mayweather.
“When we were supposed to go over there w here Floyd was, Kelly Swanson said, ‘Are you Filipino media,’ and I said yeah and I want to interview Mayweather, the she said.’No Filipino media allowed to talk to Mayweather.'”
According to Jeff De Guzman, he asked Kelly Swanson for the reason why Filipinos were refused to allow to interview Mayweather and she responded by saying that they was only following Mayweather’s instruction.
However when, Mr. De Guzman asked Monica Sears, who is the public relations coordinator for Golden Boy Promotions, to get some answer on why the Filipino media were banned from speaking to Floyd, the latter said she was unaware of any such instructions.
Mr. Chino Trinidad did mention that he was able to interview Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya, so it seems that even Golden Boy Promotions was unaware of Floyd’s instructions to keep the Filipino media from asking him questions.
When asked if anyone from Golden Boy knew of the instruction to ban the Filipino media from talking to Mayweather, Mr De Guzman responded by saying
“No one new about it, Monica Sears said that nobody was giving such instructions to them, but that we can interview Mosley…”
As a result, they still tried to interview Mayweather Jr. but were shoved away by his bodyguard. In fact, it seems that Mayweather did not target only Filipino media members, but Filipinos in general as Mr. De Guzman said that he was even ignoring the Filipino fans.
” My sister who was trying to get an autograph by Mayweathera and my sister was one of the first ones to enter and he was ignoring her. Then the Mayweather people was asking her, “Are you Filipino?”
Ignoring the Filipino media is wrong in itself, but ignoring Filipino fans as well speaks volumes of Floyd’s character. He wonders why he hasn’t gotten the recognition that hes been longing for? Well maybe, he needs to look at the mirror to find the answer.
