SPECIAL FOR TSS: Mayweather Back To Showman Ways At Midnight Presser

An early Tuesday morning.. with about 200 fans and five reporters in attendance… this was hardly your everyday press conference.

In what may have been the first midnight presser in sports history, Floyd Mayweather and Marcos Maidana undertook the second leg of their five-stop media tour to hype their September 13 rematch “Mayhem.”

After kicking off the press tour in New York City, the Northeastern US got struck with a thunderstorm that forced the principals to postpone the press conference from 6 pm till midnight. For those who remained, the MC had promised a treat. And the principals didn’t disappoint. Indeed, Mayweather, Maidana and their staff both deserve credit for showing up to “perform” for the fans as practically no media were left.

Coming out in full WWE promo mode, Mayweather and Maidana’s trainer Robert Garcia put on a show worthy of a segment on Monday Night Raw.

“Everybody just point to the easy work,” Mayweather said to a supportive DC crowd, leading a chant of, “Easy work! Easy work!”

Firing on all his “Money May” cylinders, Mayweather cut a full-blown promo, bragging about his wealth, skill and superiority. Using heavy profanity, Mayweather went on to berate Maidana’s dirty tactics in sophomoric fashion, appealing heavily to the young crowd in attendance.

“After the fight, you know I’m going to want to [make love] so you need to stop touching my [Johnson],” Mayweather said, drawing laughs from his public. “I mean, you were touching me more than my woman! No homo.”

When 2012 Trainer Of The Year Garcia got his cue to step in, he didn’t hesitate. “We were champions at the same time,” Garcia said. “Sixteen years ago, I was world champion. But if you want to take a little walk, me and you can take a little walk. I’ll show you.”

As the crowd oooh’ed and ah’ed, you could see Garcia turn to Golden Boy Promotions’ representative Eric Gomez with a smirk and a wink.

“Since he couldn’t get the job done against Diego Corrales, I did,” said Mayweather said. He implored the crowd to look up Garcia’s title-losing effort to the late Corrales that eventually led to the 2001 Mayweather-Corrales matchup.

“I’ve been dominating for 18 years,” he continued, “champion for 17 years.”

“We can just take a little walk,” Garcia repeated.

Said Mayweather, “I’m the type of fighter, I can kick a fighter *** and the trainer *** the same night.”

They were selling the fight, people. Mayweather even took the time to comment on he-whose-name-must-not-be-spoken, Manny Pacquiao. “Don’t talk to me about that b—h,” a dismissive Mayweather said. “That b—h still got Marquez problems. That was easy work, we call that a cakewalk.”

After seeing a more mellow, introspective Floyd Mayweather in recent fights, the pound-for-pound king was back to his WWE-heel ways that initially propelled him to superstar status. The faux-face, good guy wasn’t cutting it anyway. People love to hate Mayweather.

Contrived or not — and clearly it was — he’s just giving the people what they want.

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