Did everyone catch HBO?s Bob Papa not even attempting to pronounce ?Hlatshwayo? during the lead-up to the Andre Berto-Jan Zaveck fight on Saturday night? Papa quickly said something to the effect of ?Hasho,? mumbling his way through the second syllable like he was Chevy Chase doing a comedy bit, and moved on.
But I?m not going to criticize Papa for mailing one in. If anything, I envy him for being so blas?. One of these days, I?m going to send Editor Mike a completely half-assed column that took 45 minutes to write, and I?m not going to lose sleep over it.
But that day is not today. I put actual effort into answering a reader email and compiling the weekly Rants. I even used Google a couple of times to make sure my information was correct. So enjoy it while you can, because a man can only care about the quality of his work for so long before he takes the ?Hasho? route:
Hi Eric,
I know the fight between the Mayweather father and son on 24/7 looked real, but I?m not buying it. It seems I?m in the great minority on that. But did you notice how often both guys turned toward the camera when they were hurling their insults? And more to the point, why should we believe anything Floyd Jr. does or says? This is a guy who acts like a d-head to every opponent in the build-up to the fight, then suddenly is Mr. Magnanimous after the fight ends. He even claimed his partying lifestyle is purely for image enhancement, to sell fights. If you?re going to make that kind of a claim, everything you do has to be questioned. So I?m questioning this spat with his dad. It looked like scripted ?reality? TV to me, like The Hills or Laguna Beach.
