ESPN was once the biggest fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Do you remember all the “love fests” between ESPN’s Brian Kenney and Floyd Jr? How about the commercials Floyd Jr made for ESPN? Or the numerous appearances that Floyd Jr made on ESPN content? At every twist or turn, it seemed that ESPN was always behind Floyd Jr. Who’s Floyd Mayweather Jr more afraid of Manny Pacquiao or the IRS? When the first breakdown between Floyd Jr and Manny Pacquiao happened, ESPN appeared to have blamed Manny for the collapse of the mega-fight. In fact, check out my articles “ESPN is so Pro-Mayweather it makes me sick” and “ESPN’s Around the Horn thinks the Pacquiao-Clottey fight is no big deal” to get an idea of ESPN’s Mayweather favoritism. Let’s also not forget Dan Rafael placing Floyd Jr above Manny Pacquiao on his top fighters rankings. And then the Floyd Mayweather Jr “love fest” culminated with Floyd winning the ESPY for ‘Fighter of the Year’ a few days ago. Was anyone surprised by this? He’s the biggest American name in boxing and he has a long standing relationship with the company. Of course, Floyd Jr deserves this award (sarcasm). He defeated a smaller fighter and an older fighter who should be enjoying retirement instead of fighting. In that same period of time, Manny Pacquiao won a world title in a historical 7th weight class and “shell shocked” another top welterweight in his second fight. But things are starting to change at ESPN.
