Everyone’s instinct is to dislike Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and everyone’s instinct is to dislike the musical projects of boxers. Here those instincts are right on the “money.” (Get it? Floyd likes money! Or, “money,” since he serially exaggerates how much of it he has.)
Where to start with this trash? As a hip-hop fan, the Young Jeezy drawn-out sing-songy thing is plenty irritating to me, but this chap — his name is “Rocko” — takes it to a whole new level of irritating en route to a Rebecca Black/Justin Bieber-caliber hateful earworm. Then there’s the racist misspelling of “jewelry,” and don’t think you can chalk that one up to typos, Racisty Racisterson, because we know your history and as our Alex McClintock noted, you are rich enough to afford a spellchecker. The best part is that the IRS can use this as a road map to get more taxes out of Mayweather! He might as well have recorded himself speeding or something.
Then there’s this new recording by rival Manny Pacquiao, which is endearingly bad. If you’re going to go awful, at least strip all the pretense out of it and embrace the cheesiness. He embraced it so much he did it as a duet with the original singer of “Sometimes When We Touch,” Dan Hill. And, actually, he very nearly kicks ass on that final “subsides.”
Here are the rest of this week’s quick Quick Jabs, since the gruel was thin this week:
Sticking with the Philippines, insult comic Don Rickles recently threw some racist schtick at Pacquiao. Something about saving his people during World War II and them living in huts. I’m sure we’ll get more on an upcoming episode of Fight Camp 360, but by then, Rickles could be dead, not because of old age but because a ton of Filipino boxing fans already see racist conspiracies behind everything and have hit me (a lover of Pacquiao, Filipino boxers, and the Filipino people! I have Filipino friends, promise!) with death threats over it. When you come straight out with the racism, even comedy racism, this could be trouble…
Yet more Philippines: Golden Boy and Top Rank have agreed to confine their dispute over the contract of Nonito Donaire to arbitration, according to Top Rank’s Bob Arum, which means Donaire isn’t going to be tied up for years in boxing limbo, which in turns mean good things for the electric bantamweight and his fans. Incidentally, Arum said he would consider working with Golden Boy again — for, say, Victor Ortiz-Pacquiao — if they apologize about suggesting Pacquiao was on ‘roids, which strikes me as a very fair request. It would also maybe be nice if Arum apologized for saying bad stuff about Oscar De La Hoya being “dumb” and so forth, and he doesn’t even have to mean it that much. This feels like a perfectly good pathway to resolving this confict. Move over, (arbitrator) Danny boy!…
A study in contrasting demeanors: Junior welterweight Breidis Prescott — fighting on Friday Night Fights tonight, which starts early on ESPN3 — might never get a rematch with Amir Khan, but he wins this year’s title for trash talking to date. He referred to Khan’s most recent opponent, the little-known Paul McCloskey, as “mystery meat.” A+++++. Compare that to the ultra-classy way bantamweight Abner Mares handled the fall-out for his fight this weekend against Joseph Agbeko. Per a news release: “Everyone knows it would have been a great fight, but it’s only fair to give him his time to heal. He earned his spot in the finals, just as I did, so he deserves his time to get well to make this fight happen,” Mares said. “I know that some of you are sad or mad that we’re not fighting, but you have to understand that health comes first.” A+++++. There’s plenty of room in the sport for both kinds of demeanors…
I honestly can’t keep track of, or make heads or tails of, this whole debacle involving bantamweight Anselmo Moreno, Golden Boy, superstar advisor Sampson Lewkovicz and the Panamanian boxing commission. I give it to you to see if you can decode it…
Want to escape from jail? Just tell the guard that you’re shadow boxing. One more thing that boxing is good for.
