BREAKING NEWS: I don’t really know what Mr. King and Mr. Mayweather are doing today, meaning Thursday, but the lovebirds were billing and cooing in Florida Wednesday.
If my legion of critics and vicious haters have clicked in today looking for my humble apology, then all I can say is that they will be sorely disappointed.
When it comes to reporting a dew days ago, that promoter Don King had made a $100 million, four fight deal to free agent Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. and that ?Money May? had taken pen to paper and ?inked? such a deal, I am like Frank Sinatra warbling his iconic ?My Way.?
To be specific, ?regrets I’ve had a few…but, then again, too few to mention…?
Having said that, I will do what some defendants can do in criminal courts in certain jurisdictions and that is plead guilty with an explanation attached to my minor league mea culpa.
I committed a venial sin, not a mortal one, in going too far. My solid source, someone close to King and someone who carefully watched and audited some of the wild-haired one’s telephone and face to face dealings in St. Louis last week with Mayweather, was accurate in all that he relayed to me.
I’m the one who leaped off the Mayweather Bridge with my adding that a deal was consummated.
I thrust myself into the abyss, I wasn’t pushed, this I will admit freely.
I did hedge a bit and say the supposed agreement was in the hot rumor stage and would become truth soon.
I did not define soon but I’d say King wants to ink Mayweather on the first…
First chance he gets, Don can be pushy like that or so history informs us.
Art by John Paul Raloto
Instead, it turns out, the ring romance brewing between Mayweather and King is moving to the third or fourth date stage.
King claims Mayweather told him he will soon be back to King’s South Florida stomping grounds to continue their conversations. Look, folks, they are not discussing the state of the rap music game because the 79 in eight days King is more into Dinah Washington and his Cleveland buddies, The O’Jays, than he is into Mayweather favorites Fifty Cent, Rick Ross and R. Kelly.
So what was on the money as to ?Money May.?
Again, my source stands solid like The Rock of Gibraltar, unwavering in stormy seas.
One of the first things you learn in Contracts class in law school is that, to form a contract, there must be two actions.
One, there must be a specific, detailed offer.
Two, there must be acceptance of said offer.
King’s made his lavish offer, hoping to add the superstar to his quite anemic roster.
I don’t see the offer getting bettter and I don’t think Floyd is playing hard to get.
My source called me after reading my last column on this topic and told me I went too far in saying the promoter and the unbeaten boxer had a deal signed, sealed and delivered.
I thought this trusted source had been identified and then bitten by King and that the source was trying to shield himself then from King’s fury.
I was wrong. I was wrong in not admitting I was wrong.
Mayweather could obviously stay with his current team, with Al Haymon, with Golden Boy and with sidekick Leoanrd Ellerbe.
As far as I can tell, the only one holding paper, meaning a contract on Mayweather is Haymon and that is as an adviser, not as a promoter.
GBP and Ellerbe serve at Mayweather’s pleasure and his flirtations with King show more displeasure than happiness.
What the current Mayweather team has in common with Team Pacquiao (that’s you, Bob Arum) is bith sides have incredibly and foolishly coughed up the ball twice and we still have no Mayweather-Manny fight on the horizon.
I wouldn’t blame both Floyd and Manny for being itate over the double fumble routine.
Does anyone with a working brain think that Mayweather hung around King in two different states without DK outlining the framework of a deal?
I’ve been watching King for 40 years, five of them inside his home office as the Propaganda Minister, and King is no slow roller when it comes to making deals.
I don’t see any legal obstruction to King making such an offer and I still think he made this generous offer to Floyd.
We have an offer but this fight is not over.
The knockout in this scenario is acceptance and that is something only Mayweather controls.
The bottom line here is I refuse to turn in my pugilistic pundit’s card.
If Mayweather demurs and keeps dancing with his old crew, I would still be half right and half wrong.
If he does sign with King, then my timing was off but I am 100 percent right.
Right now, on this topic, I’m batting .500.
I expect the call from Cooperstown and maybe Canastota any minute now.
With that batting average, I am (he said modestly) a cinch for the Hall Of Fame.
(Side note to Gary Reynolds, writing on Fight Hype, who wrote that Mayweather sat ringside with King in St. Louis because DK gave him an appearance fee, I have to laugh. How much is the appearance fee for a guy who just earned $22 million on May 1?)
We all have the right to be wrong, Gary, so welcome to the club. May I ask whether a site with “hype” as part of its name is the barometer of boxing truth? I though The Boxingtruth.com was all that and more.
And thanks for spelling my name and ?Examiner? right.
We do appreciate it.
