Hoping, Still Hoping, Mayweather Sees The Light

Published

11 years ago

September 11, 2014

Photo Credit: Esther Lin/SHOWTIME

We are all a work in progress, and by no means, I have found, does age equal wisdom.

I found myself thinking this when I heard what Floyd Mayweather said Tuesday when asked at a media event what he thought bout the Ray Rice situation. For those in a boxing bubble, Rice is the NFL player who was busted for assault, after he knocked out his then fiancee, now wife, Janay Palmer on Feb. 15 in New Jersey.

Rice was arrested and indicted for third-degree assault, after he and Palmer were both arrested at Revel Casino in Atlantic City. Thanks to the tabloid website TMZ, the story spread, and public outrage grew, as 99.9% were horrified to see the running back dragging the unconscious woman out of the elevator. A similar percentage of people were mightily surprised when Palmer and Rice were married on March 28.

He got off with a wrist slap, as his team the Ravens suspended him for the first two games of this season. The charges were dropped as Rice pled not guilty to assaulting the lady, and he has been attending a program to attend to such violent behavior. But the matter didn’t melt away into the morass of misbehavior featured regularly on TMZ. Luckily, that organization kept on working the story, and secured video, which spoke louder than our imaginations and reports from authorities and self serving statements from the billionaire boys club that is the NFL did. The video showed the couple in the elevator, Palmer walking towards Rice, and Rice delivering a left hook which knocked her out.

His fiancee. Knocked her out.

The other shoe dropped, and hit NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who not incidentally was paid $44 million dollars last year for his presumed competence and wisdom and wise stewardship, on his Guccis. Public and press scorn was ubiquitous when the smoking gun video came out; the NFL backpedaled, and tried to act contrite. Rice has been suspended indefinitely And I think Roger “Go To Hell” Goodell should be fired, definitely.

This brings us back to our shared addiction, the fight game. As you can imagine, such incidences of domestic violence, which might seem unfathomable to many of us, who can’t even imagine striking a “loved” one, let alone going there, are not a rarity among boxers. Not a surprise, I suppose, as the sport attracts an element which tends to commit such acts more than people who grew up in an atmosphere and in a place of privilege and guidance which made that behavior less likely to come to fruition.

The sport, like football, is an exercise in contained and basically structured violence, wherein the aim of many of the participants is to render the opposition insensible. Thus, we can’t all act with such naivete as to think that sometimes there could be blurring of the lines, instances where the activity and behavior which is condoned and rewarded on the field or in the ring bleeds into the off field existence. We never excuse, it goes without saying, we but of course don’t condone, but we should be able to see that nothing occurs outside of a wider context. But no one, it seems, in their right mind, would be giving Rice anything resembling a free pass. Which is why Floyd Mayweathers’ statements on Tuesday, when he was asked about the Rice situation, are galling.

Hey, we get it. We don’t live in a context free space. We get that our system can’t grind to a halt because someone effs up.The show, the money flow, must go on. The more “important” you are, most often, the more your space in the show will be held for you, even if you eff up, because ability to generate revenue is correlated with worth and importance in our system. Rice, who signed a five year contract for $35 million in 2012, is important to the Ravens. As Floyd Mayweather is important to boxing. He makes a minimum of $33 million or so per fight in his six-fight deal he signed with Showtime. The economic impact of his fights and his presence isn’t negligible and thus, he is treated accordingly. His status as a revenue-churner didn’t keep the man from being convicted of assault, though, back in 2012, stemming from a horrific incident involving the women who birthed three of his children. He was sentenced to three months and served 8 weeks of that in a Nevada facility from June to August 2012.

My hope for Mayweather, me as a person who himself seeks out positive role models to look toward to aid in my own quest to act in a “correct” and decent way, and as representative for the sport which I hold dear, has long been that I hope he sees the light.

For himself, for his family, the kids, for the sport, everything…

Bragging about gambling, and the contract, and the cars, all that stuff, I don’t care for it, because those are messages contrary to what I believe are the things that really, truly matter. But you don’t come here to read me moralize, and, further, that doesn’t mean that I am not sometimes entertained by his posturing.

Also, refer back to what I said about us not expecting too much, us expecting the fighters to act as assassins in the ring, and angels outside of it. So, in light of my hopes for Mayweather, who turns 38 in February, I was, yes, disappointed in his statements on the Rice deal. If you missed them, here’s what went down. Reporter Tim Smith, during a media scrum, asked Mayweather what he thought about “the news of the day,” the Rice situation. The boxer took a gulp of water, and swam to the deep end. “You know, I wish him nothing but the best,” said, and then cracked a joke about “that Warren Buffet coke” as an aide handed him a soda.

“When all is said and done, I wish something positive out of it…I’m not here to say anything negative about him, things happen, you live and you learn, no one is perfect.”

OK, nothing insensible there, even if my first reaction is that maybe most peoples’ first reaction is sympathy not for the striker, but in fact, the person who was struck.

Next, he talked about how he thought the Raven should have “stuck to their word,” and their initial two-game suspension. To be fair, Smith asked him to comment on that aspect of the Rice deal, so if you thought it strange that he so quickly veered toward that element of the story, rather than the bigger picture issue, there is a reason he took that route, the money route.

He made sense when after ESPN’s Dan Rafael asked for clarity, if the Raven should stick with the two game ban, as opposed to cutting Rice, Floyd said he tries to be a better person every day. He said he did see the video,and Rafael served him up a softball which he could have hit out of the park, could have shown that he’s on the right track to being that better person. He could have answered in a way to show people that the past misdeeds are history, that there will be no more accusations or such, Rafael termed the video “kind of disturbing.”

Floyd paused, as I prayed for him to do the right thing. He…didn’t.

“I think it’s a lot of worse things that go on in other peoples’ households also,” he said. “We just don’t get to see them,” said Rafael. Floyd stammered and said, “it’s just not caught on video….I wish Ray Rice nothing but the best.”

OK, that answer is disturbing, more than kind of. It is neither here nor there that horrid stuff occurs in other peoples’ households. This could be a matter where Floyd is hanging out with a brand of people where such behavior is commonplace. And while kayoing your fiancee isn’t the most heinous of crimes, I feel sad for the person who is immune to the seriousness of the act, and apparently dismisses the assault because of the prevalence of similar actions in others’ residences. A minute plus in, and Mayweather still didn’t mention Palmer, and continued to stick up for Rice, the assaulter.

He showed most sympathy, over all, for the footballer, and focused on the lost income. He then did say that he thinks the loss of vocation is hurtful to Rice, and his wife, so he did in fact refer to the victim.

Rafael asked if he thought he’d be kicked out of boxing because of his “situation.”

Mayweather was again handed the ball, and, many if not most would argue, fumbled it. He referred back to his insistent explanation that he was mistakenly found guilty, because the woman he assaulted, Josie Harris, wasn’t bruised or cut. He tried to compare and contrast, noting that Chris Brown and OJ Simpson’s and Ochocinco victims both showed the effects of being struck. “You guys have yet to see any pictures of a battered woman, a woman who claims she was kicked and beat,” he said, presumably referring to Harris. “I just live my life, try to stay positive, try to become a better person each and every day.”

Me too. Part of that, a large part of that, is trying to be patient, to help see all sides of a story or situation. So, I have to ponder, what if Floyd was wrongly convicted? My answer to my self query is, the man has a lengthy record of domestic assault situations. Where there’s smoke…Also, you might recall, last May, a Yahoo story referenced a police report from the Mayweather-Harris fight in which the writer, Martin Rogers, saw a statement from Floyd’s then 11 year old son, who told cops that he “saw my dad hitting and kicking mom.”

Hey, do police tell the truth all the time? Nobody does. But do you see the plausibility in there being a fabricated written statement from an 11 year old boy? We’re talking a JFK assassination level of sinister plotting if that were the case. It reminds me of athletes hit with allegations of PED usage who counter by saying, “I never tested positive.” Er, OK, would you not rather say that you unequivocally never used PEDs, rather than rely on the weasely lawyer response? Would Floyd not rather say ‘I never hit or kicked that woman’ rather than saying that the absence of evidence is evidence of innocence?

It appears someone spoke some sense to “Money,” told him his comments weren’t playing well, or, who knows, maybe he had his own pangs of conscience. But the next day, he was on his bike. “If I offended anyone, I apologize,” he said to a gaggle of reporters after the Wednesday presser at MGM. “I apologize to the NFL,” he said, noting he wasn’t perfect. “I am only human. Domestic violence is something I don’t condone.”

OK, I guess we take what we can get. I would to have liked to hear a more in-depth, more thoughtful apology, paired with some additional insight into the whole mess. But I think it would be hard to pull off, because Mayweather has to feel a kinship with Rice, in that both have been punished for something everybody finds appalling. We can only hope that, as always, some good comes of this sad soap opera. We hope that some eyes get opened, and some people somewhere get the message and cut the crap. Violence against loved ones, of any gender, is nothing but wrong. No excuse. Don’t talk provocation, or lack of video, or lack of evidence in the form of bruises. Just cut it out, abusers, get yourself some professional help, and do the right thing. And if we don’t speak up, all of us, who cover him, who work for him, who televise him, that’s on us. To be silent is to silently condone, is it not?

END NOTE: I reached out to Showtime, and asked for an official comment regarding Mayweather, his Rice comments, their association with him, and their stance as a corporation on the fighter in relation to his legal history. I await a response and will add it to this story when I receive it. I think it is important we hear that, because I’d like some clarity on how MY SPORT deals with this subject. I like to think we do the right thing more often than given credit for, and I think, to this point, we have all not given enough thought and attention to the negative history the sports’ biggest star has in the arena of using physical force against past and present significant others. All of us can can “try to become a better person each and every day,” like Mayweather said on Tuesday, but he is the standard bearer of the sport and people, rightly or maybe wrongly, look up to him…it is incumbent upon him to finally get it, and do it. I continue to hope he sees that light, and his behavior reflects that going forward.

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Michael Woods

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Published

9 hours ago

May 9, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Years ago, I worked at a newsstand in the Beverly Hills area. It was a 24-hour a day version and the people that dropped by were very colorful and unique.

One elderly woman Eva, who bordered on homeless but pridefully wore lipstick, would stop by the newsstand weekly to purchase a pack of menthol cigarettes. On one occasion, she asked if I had ever been to San Diego?

I answered “yes, many times.”

She countered “you need to watch out for San Diego Smoke.”

This Saturday, Top Rank brings its brand of prizefighting to San Diego or what could be called San Diego Smoke. Leading the fight card is Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs) defending the WBO super feather title against undefeated Filipino Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) at Pechanga Arena. ESPN will televise.

This is Navarrete’s fourth defense of the super feather title.

The last time Navarrete stepped in the boxing ring he needed six rounds to dismantle the very capable Oscar Valdez in their rematch. One thing about Mexico City’s Navarrete is he always brings “the smoke.”

Also, on the same card is Fontana, California’s Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) vying for the interim IBF lightweight title against Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-1, 12 KOs) on the co-main event.

Abdullaev has only fought once before in the USA and was handily defeated by Devin Haney back in 2019. But that was six years ago and since then he has knocked off various contenders.

Muratalla is a slick fighting lightweight who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy now in Moreno Valley, Calif. It’s a virtual boot camp with many of the top fighters on the West Coast available to spar on a daily basis. If you need someone bigger or smaller, stronger or faster someone can match those needs.

When you have that kind of preparation available, it’s tough to beat. Still, you have to fight the fight. You never know what can happen inside the prize ring.

Another fighter to watch is Perla Bazaldua, 19, a young and very talented female fighter out of the Los Angeles area. She is trained by Manny Robles who is building a small army of top female fighters.

Bazaldua (1-0, 1 KO) meets Mona Ward (0-1) in a super flyweight match on the preliminary portion of the Top Rank card. Top Rank does not sign many female fighters so you know that they believe in her talent.

Others on the Top Rank card in San Diego include Giovani Santillan, Andres Cortes, Albert Gonzalez, Sebastian Gonzalez and others.

They all will bring a lot of smoke to San Diego.

Probox TV

A strong card led by Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (26-2, 18 KOs) facing Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0, 6 KOs) in a super welterweight clash between southpaws takes place on Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. PROBOX TV will stream the fight card.

Ardreal has rocketed up the standings and now faces veteran Lubin whose only losses came against world titlists Sebastian Fundora and Jermell Charlo. It’s a great match to decide who deserves a world title fight next.

Another juicy match pits Argentina’s Nazarena Romero (14-0-2) against Mexico’s Mayelli Flores (12-1-1) in a female super bantamweight contest.

Nottingham, England

Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KOs) defends the IBO super featherweight title against Leigh Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) in Wood’s hometown on Saturday at Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, England. DAZN will stream the Queensberry Promotions card.

Ireland’s Cacace seems to have the odds against him. But he is no stranger to dancing in the enemy’s lair or on foreign territory. He formerly defeated Josh Warrington in London and Joe Cordina in Riyadh in IBO title defenses.

Lampley at Wild Card

Boxing telecaster Jim Lampley will be signing his new book It Happened! at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 2 p.m. Lampley has been a large part of many of the greatest boxing events in the past 40 years. He and Freddie Roach will be at the signing.

Fights to Watch (All times Pacific Time)

Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Anthony Cacace (23-1) vs Leigh Wood (28-3).

Sat. PROBOX.tv 3 p.m. Erickson Lubin (26-2) vs Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1) vs Charly Suarez (18-0); Raymond Muratalla (22-0) vs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Published

1 day ago

May 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Stephen-Breadman-Edwards-An-Unlikely-Boxing-Coach-with-a-Panoramic-View-of-the-Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.

It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.

In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.

Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.

It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.

“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.

Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.

Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.

Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.

We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.

Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”

But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.

“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”

Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.

Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”

If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38^th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.

Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”

Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.

Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.

On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

3 days ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-Boxing-Recap-and-More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

****

Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!