Let?s just say I?ve been injected with sodium pentathol. Yes, the truth serum shot into my rapidly constricting veins easily.
It?s flowing deeply and freely so I am going to abandon being politically correct about Floyd Mayweather Jr. I?m throwing off the blankets of bullshit that the public hears and thus thinks about boxing?s best fighter. Er, I mean boxing’s best temporarily retired fighter.
Egomaniac. Ghetto wankster. Rude gashole when it comes to meeting and greeting the paying public. Total jagoff in dealing with the media.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not guilty as charged, except for the egomaniacal part.
Let?s first get this part straight. I am a generation older than Floyd Jr. I am about the same age as his father and his uncle, Roger. Today, alas, I am another year older if not wiser.
I?m not his ?boy.? I am not his ?peep.? I am not his ?homie.?
I don?t hang with PBF. I?m not at his side when he is making it ?rain? in strip clubs or hobnobbing with Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian or any others of that ilk at the super chic nightclubs in Vegas. You know, the chi chi wawa nightspots where you have to spend two grand on ?bottle service.? As my Pinoy pal and fellow journalist Hermie Rivera can attest, we know how to go Old School and get ?bottle service? from a liquor store.
A $25 bottle of vodka goes down just as smoothly as the same bottle jacked up to $250, trust me.
I had a chance to again meet and greet Mayweather at the Boxing Writers Association of America Dinner in Los Angeles llast month.
And, that and an impromptu chance meeting I had with PBF in Cancun a couple of years ago, leaves me with this minority view.
Mayweather, despite the hulking bodyguards and the Mt. Everest ego, is a good guy, a people person and a fighter who respects not only his sport but the history of it and many of the people who have made it tick.
Looking at it properly, I even find his self comparisons to past greats, even to Ray Robinson, to be unoffensive. At least he knows something about his sport’s histroy unlike some of those moronic baseball players who think Jackie Robinson is Ray’s brother.
By the way, those hulking bodyguards appear to be more for show than for protection. They do not growl and they do not bite. Clearly, from what I saw during and after the boxing scribes dinner, they do not impede Joe Fight Fan?s access to Mayweather for handshakes, autographs or any other reasdonable request in a public setting.
Now, if you come with bad intentions, they might remove your head from your torso but, other than that, go ahead and ask Mayweather for a grip and grin picture or his John Hancock.
Mayweather was smiling, shaking hands and laughing throughout the writers dinner. People freely approached his table and the oversized bodyguards on Mayweather?s payroll did nothing to impede their approach.
If you came with respect, you got treated with respect. And Mayweather did more than grip and grin, he engaged people in conversation.
When the dinner was over and most of the crowd repaired to the Biltmore Hotel, the Mayweather group sat in seats in the back of the lounge.
Again, people approached and again no one was turned away or dissed. Mayweather was so effusive he seemed like Obama barreling his way through North Carolina and Indiana.
I thought then that this is the side of Mayweather that the general public rarely sees. I looked at Mayweather?s minions and, besides the bodyguards, he had all boxing folks around including his treasured handwrapper Rafael Garcia.
Mayweather did not surround himself, as Oscar de la Hoya does, with captains of industry or famous entertainers.
I?m not knocking Oscar but he seems to move in a different world with the Jerry Perenchios, with other millionaires and some billionaires. Yes, on a one on one basis, Oscar can be a real charmer but Mayweather sufferers from a different image and one I think is a false image.
Tell me that Mayweather’s pigmentation is not part of that false image. And then tell me about the Easter bunny also.
Chamillionaire might?ve been thinking about Mayweather when he sang ?Riding Dirty.? I know plenty of boxing people who be thrilled if Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. was caught riding dirty.
I can?t see that happening. You might like him, you might loathe him. But try, even in his self-imposed and so shrewd retirement, to ignore him. Ignore him and you ignore boxing.
But, when it comes to dealing with the public and with other boxing industry people, Mayweather is about as real as real can get.
Pound for pound, no other boxing superstar compares to Floyd when he opts to shine his light in public.
Charisma, class, personality. That?s how Floyd Mayweather rolls in public when he wants to.
Did I say all that? Here comes the Nuthugger Posse on my trail.
It wasn?t me, guys.
It was that damned sodium penthahol.
As soon as it wears off, as soon as I shake it, I will shape up.
I?ll go back to doing what the dimwits do, portraying Mayweather as what he is not.
Which is as an ogre.
Come back whenever you want, PBF, and bring your skill set with you. Any true boxing fan misses that.
