Senior Columnist
“Only God can judge me” has been the mantra of boxing’s current golden boy, the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. as he lives his opulent lifestyle free from the consequences of his sin.
This Saturday, May 2, he will fight Manny Pacquiao in the most anticipated boxing match in recent memory. Mayweather has been unrepentant of his actions, and while he’s served time for some of them, he has continued to serially abuse women.
Melissa Brim, mother of one of his daughters, alleges that he struck her in the face with a car door. Shantel Jackson, alleged that Mayweather choked her and threatened to shoot her when she told him she wanted to leave him. Josie Harris, mother of three of Mayweather’s children, was brutally assaulted and threatened as her children were forced by threat of violence, by their father, to watch him beat their mother.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has the power to revoke a fighter’s license for any legal violation above a traffic ticket. It has done no such thing. The man’s actions are sickening to say the least, but his opponent is merely the lesser of two evils rather than the knight of honor and good by comparison.
Pacquiao is an elected leader in his native Philippines. One wouldn’t know that given the man’s boxing, acting and singing careers. On top of these, Pacquiao is an alleged womanizer, fielding multiple reports of marital infidelity.
Boxing needs Mayweather and Pacquiao to survive. Without the anticipation, speculation and media buzz surrounding these two fighters, boxing will assume it’s rightful place in the public’s conscious: relegated to the same sports wasteland occupied by the likes of lacrosse.
That’s why the fight has taken so long to come to pass. Fans have grown tired of played-out, one-sided rivalries. Even the most casual of sports fans will tell you this fight is seven years too late. Both fighters are on the closing end of their thirties, knocking on heaven’s door by sports standards. Boxing isn’t giving you the fight you’ve been fighting for. It’s conceding a product it knows won’t have value in a few years.
The debate over who will or should win is becoming as intense as that stupid Internet argument over the color of that dress, only there’s no right answer. Everyone is picking a side, but no one is right. I can’t wait until all of this blows over.
I’m sick of ESPN and other news networks coming to stand alongside Mayweather. The power of a boxer’s record extends as far as the ring. That’s how it works. It’s not a get out of jail free card neither does it excuse him from the consequences of the law.
Saturday’s match will be a battle not between good and evil, but will follow the formula that’s come to be expected of most sports: millionaires competing against each other for more money.
Regardless of the winner, we all lose.
