LAS VEGAS – Floyd Mayweather Jr. stood toe-to-toe with Sugar Ray Leonard. Twenty years ago and in a boxing ring, this would have been one of the greatest matches in boxing history. But on this night two years ago at the annual boxing writers’ dinner in Las Vegas with the two men dressed in suits, it was merely a war of words.
Mayweather was explaining to Leonard how and why he would have beaten Leonard if they had ever met, how it was a battle Leonard would lose when Mayweather landed a vicious body shot.
“A lightweight beat you,” Mayweather said, referring to Leonard’s loss to Roberto Duran.
Eventually, Leonard walked away.
It was more than the kid tugging on Superman’s cape. It was the kid ripping it off his back.
Though Mayweather is arguably more talented than Leonard was, Mayweather’s brashness has not made him the kind of endearing figure that the charismatic Leonard was during his boxing career.
That is why when Mayweather steps into the ring on Saturday night against Oscar De La Hoya at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in a 12-round WBC junior middleweight title match, many in the sold-out crowd will be rooting for De La Hoya to whip Mayweather.
Mayweather’s bravado is borne of his miserable upbringing and his prodigious talent. He uses it to mask his insecurities outside of the ring and to herald his invincibility inside of it.
To this point, the 30-year-old Mayweather has had a great deal to brag about: an unblemished record, world championships at 130, 135, 140 and 147 pounds, a lengthy stint at the top of the mythical “Pound-for-Pound” list and ring earnings that have made him a multimillionaire with a 12,000-square foot house on a cul-de-sac in a secluded Vegas community, and a fleet of luxury cars. He may be the best pure boxer since Sugar Ray Robinson – and Mayweather believes that he would have beaten him, too.
“I feel like I would have won,” Mayweather says. “I’m not in this sport to say a guy can beat me. I’ve seen a lot of film of Ray Robinson. He kept his guard low and he stood flat-footed.”
While most of Mayweather’s critics would argue that he has no respect for the legends that preceded him, Mayweather sees himself in the same picture frame with the greats.
“When they mention those legendary fighters my name will come up,” he says. “You go to any boxing gym in America and ask the kids who they would rather be, me or Oscar, and they’re all going to say me.”
A victory over De La Hoya would go a long way toward cementing that legacy for Mayweather. But beating De La Hoya will not automatically make Mayweather boxing’s next “Golden Boy” – or exorcise the demons of his past.
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After winning a bronze medal for the U.S. Olympic boxing team at the 1996 Atlanta Games, Mayweather signed a promotional deal with Top Rank, which also promoted De La Hoya. It was the beginning of a rivalry that will culminate on Saturday.
Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank, says it envisioned Mayweather being the next Leonard or even De La Hoya – a charismatic star with crossover appeal. It never happened. Mayweather, who thought he should have been marketed more heavily in urban areas, bolted from the company last year after more than a decade.
“Floyd was so gifted and talented, and it was a difficult situation,” duBoef says. “He felt his abilities made him the best in the sport. You don’t get paid by ability. You get paid by marketability. He saw Oscar making $20 million to fight Felix Trinidad and he couldn’t believe it because he didn’t think Oscar was that good in the ring. That was Floyd’s nemesis when he was with us. His marketability hadn’t caught up to his talent. He didn’t have the patience to wait for it to catch up.”
Mayweather says he isn’t worried about whether he is perceived as a good guy. That is why he chose to be the bad guy in the promotion for the match with De La Hoya.
Mayweather played to his casting on “De La Hoya-Mayweather-24/7” the four-part, behind-the-scenes look at both camps leading up to its Pay-Per-View broadcast. A foul-mouthed Mayweather flashed his cash and bling, displayed his expensive sports cars and hung out with rap artist 50 Cent while De La Hoya sipped espresso, cooed with his baby boy, Gabriel, and brought home a birthday cake for his wife, Millie. Publicly, Mayweather is marked by his strained relationship with his father Floyd Sr. It is a perplexing relationship. At one turn, Mayweather says he loves his father and at another he says he doesn’t want him to be in his corner for the most important fight of his life.
Away from the public eye, Mayweather Jr. is a doting father to his son and two daughters, a caring son to his mother, a conscientious brother to his sisters and a loyal friend to those close to him.
That much came through recently during the weekly Sunday gathering at his mother’s home in Las Vegas. Mayweather’s nephews, nieces, sisters and members of his training team attend this combination family reunion, cookout and block party. Food, drink and laughter are plentiful. The kitchen is ground zero for ribs and ribbing.
Mayweather takes good-natured heat for being so spoiled that his mother makes him special hamburgers with his favorite barbecue sauce, which he dutifully goes to the supermarket to purchase. When Mayweather returns, it looks as if a 10-year-old made the trip – he has candy, donuts, ice cream and flavored milk.
“I love having my family and my team around like this,” Mayweather says. “I wish all the fans could be a part of this. I’m for real and this is what is real to me.”
Sitting in the kitchen with the din of R&B music and his family’s laughter as a backdrop, Mayweather reflects on how far he has come.
“When I was about 8 or 9, I lived in New Jersey with my mother and we were seven deep in one bedroom and sometimes we didn’t have electricity,” Mayweather says. “When people see what I have now, they have no idea of where I came from and how I didn’t have anything growing up.”
Mayweather was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., into a family of boxers. His father Floyd Sr. and his uncles Jeff and Roger were all professional boxers. Floyd Sr. was defeated by Leonard in 1978. He never fought for a world title. Floyd Sr. also had a side job – selling drugs. That job made him a mean taskmaster at home. His punishment of little Floyd was often harsh and brutal, according to Mayweather Jr. He says that when he was a baby, his father used him as a shield to keep his brother-in-law from shooting him.
“It depends on which side of the family you talk to,” Mayweather Jr. says. “My father said he was holding me and he said, ‘If you’re going to shoot me, you’re going to shoot the baby, too.’ But my mother said he used me as a shield to keep from getting shot. “Either way, I’m just happy I didn’t get shot and I’m still here.”
It was nothing for young Floyd to come home from school and find used heroin needles in his front yard. His mother was also addicted to drugs and he had an aunt who died from AIDS because of her drug use.
“People don’t know the hell I’ve been through,” he says.
The most time that his father spent with him was taking him to the gym to train and work on his boxing, according to Mayweather.
“I don’t remember him ever taking me anywhere or doing anything that a father would do with a son, going to the park or to the movies or to get ice cream,” he says. “I always thought that he liked his daughter (Floyd’s older stepsister) better than he liked me because she never got whippings and I got whippings all the time.”
Floyd Sr. says Mayweather isn’t telling the truth about their early relationship.
“Even though his daddy did sell drugs, I didn’t deprive my son,” Floyd Sr. says. “The drugs I sold he was a part of it. He had plenty of food. He had the best clothes and I gave him money. He didn’t want for anything. Anybody in Grand Rapids can tell you that I took care of my kids.”
Floyd Sr. says he did all of his hustling at night and spent his days with his son, taking him to the gym and training him to be a boxer. “If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t be where he is today,” Floyd Sr. says.
When Mayweather was 16, his father was convicted of smuggling cocaine and sent to federal prison in Milan, Mich., for 51/2 years. With his mother battling drug addiction, Mayweather was sent to live with his paternal grandmother.
“I basically raised myself,” Mayweather says. “My grandmother did what she could. When she got mad at me I’d go to my mom’s house. My life was ups and downs.”
Floyd Sr. says he knows how much pain his incarceration caused his son, but insists he did the best he could.
“I sent him to live with his grandmother,” he says. “It wasn’t like I left him with strangers.”
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Boxing became Mayweather’s outlet – a way to deal with the absence of his father. Because he excelled at it, the sport gave him the affirmation that he was unable to get anywhere else.
As his father served his time, Mayweather, blessed with speed, agility and an uncanny ring sense, put all his energies into boxing. He even dropped out of high school.
“I knew that I was going to have to try to take care of my mom and I made the decision that school wasn’t that important at the time and I was going to have to box to earn a living,” Mayweather says.
When Floyd Sr. was released from prison, Mayweather made him his trainer and his manager. But the relationship, which was always strained, soon unraveled. Mayweather fired his father, booted him from a house he owned and took away a van that he had allowed his father to use. It played out in the media as an ungrateful son kicking his dad to the curb.
“My dad left out of my life when I was a teenager and when he came back I was a man,” Mayweather says. “My dad is a good trainer, but (my uncle) Roger got me to my first championship and of the 37 fights, my dad only trained me for six. I felt like I needed to be with Roger.” Floyd Sr. went on to train De La Hoya. But he left De La Hoya’s corner for the upcoming fight against his son because De La Hoya did not meet his $2 million salary demand. He returned to help his son in an unspecified role, but that ended recently when a long simmering feud between Floyd Sr. and Roger was reignited – sparked by comments from Floyd Jr. and Roger on “De La Hoya-Mayweather-24/7.”
Not all of Mayweather’s troubles have been caused by his father. From 2004-05, he was charged with striking a man over the head with a champagne bottle in a bar in Grand Rapids; assaulting two women in a bar in Las Vegas; and assaulting his girlfriend.
Mayweather says he never assaulted his girlfriend. He says he merely tried to hold her and keep her from breaking things in his house during an argument.
“I live in the quiet suburbs. My neighbors called the cop,” he says. “The cops asked if anybody had been touched. I said I was trying to hold her to keep her from breaking my things that I worked hard to get. When the report gets to the papers it’s all about how Floyd Mayweather body-slammed his baby’s mother.”
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Despite all of his personal turmoil, the boxing ring is Mayweather’s special province. He controls everything inside the ropes – as 37 previous opponents have discovered.
“He’s very cunning and clever,” said Kofi Jantuah, who sparred with Mayweather to help prepare him for De La Hoya. “It’s very hard to hit him with a clean shot because it seems like he knows when and where the punches are coming from.”
For an undefeated boxer who has won titles in four different weight classes, Mayweather has taken criticism for not making interesting fights. It is one of the most specious arguments against his greatness. It surfaced after he dominated Carlos Baldomir for the welterweight title in a fight in which Mayweather fought half the match with an injured hand.
“Who has knocked out Carlos Baldomir? Nobody,” Mayweather says. “But I dominated him with one hand. I don’t want to have to prove my greatness by having my eyes bleeding and getting knocked down and having to get up to win. That doesn’t make any sense. People that talk like that just want me to take an ‘L.’ I’m not even thinking about that.”
Mayweather says the De La Hoya fight is going to be his last. He is tired of justifying his greatness to those who hate him for his bravado.
“It’s never good enough,” he says. “Besides, I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished in boxing.”
