The man they once called Pretty Boy sinks his bruised hands into an iron bucket filled with ice. In a stifling gym behind a grimy side-street in downtown Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather Jr bows his head as the cold eases the hurt in his knuckles and joints. As the world’s best boxer, Mayweather’s fists have dazzled every one of his opponents while compiling a perfect 41-0 record that stretches across 15 years.
After an intense afternoon of sparring, the only sound that can be heard is the soft crunch of ice as Mayweather looks up with a curious smile. In the mood to be as charming as he is compelling, the fighter shows me his glistening hands. They look surprisingly small.
“Yeah,” Mayweather says. “These are very small hands.”
They still earn him millions every time he fights. This Saturday, at the MGM Grand in Vegas, surrounded by glitzy high-rollers, Mayweather will serve up a timely reminder of why his nickname these days is “Money”. Pay-per-view figures for his WBC world title welterweight bout against Victor Ortiz, who is 10 years younger at the age of 24, will ensure Mayweather racks up another multimillion-dollar purse.
He will seem a long way then from the sickly hookers and junkies who limp down the street a block beyond the boxing gym he owns. Mayweather finds refuge here from his trouble in real life. His most obvious problems are listed in the unresolved charges of assault, battery and coercion laid by various people, from the estranged mother of his children, to different security guards who claim to have been punched by Mayweather. He is also embroiled in an epic war with his father, Floyd Sr, which erupted again last month on HBO as the two men fought bitterly and crudely in this very gym.
