Floyd Mayweather is going to jail. According to TMZ and the live stream they provided, Mayweather pleaded no contest and was sentenced today to six months in prison for assaulting his ex-girlfriend by Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa. Three months of the prison term will be suspended, which leaves three to serve, beginning Jan. 6. On top of the prison term to be served in the Clark County Correction Center, Mayweather will also have to complete 100 hours of community service, pay a fine of $2,500 and attend domestic violence counselling program for a year.
The sentence should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed Mayweather’s career in any detail. The guy just can’t keep out of trouble. He has a long list of ugly run-ins with the law behind him including allegedly poking in the face and harassing various security guards. But this incident, an assault on his ex-girlfriend Josie Harris in September 2010, sounds particularly ugly, taking place in front of his children.
All this takes place just as all signs were beginning to point to the biggest fight in boxing, Manny Pacquiao vs. Mayweather, finally taking place on May 5. I’m no math whiz, but I’m pretty sure that 87 days in prison (three months minus time served) starting in January would have Mayweather coming out in March. That likely would not leave enough time for the media tour and training that a mega fight like that would require.
There was always a chance that this could happen, considering Mayweather’s legal troubles. The best boxing fans can hope for is that some time in prison does Floyd some good, attitude-wise. A fight with Pacquiao isn’t necessarily off, but it’s now looking as unlikely as it ever was. Since we’re talking about Floyd here, there’s always the chance that he suspected the game was up all along and was just playing with Pacquiao in regards to the May 5 date.
If you were Manny, would you feel like waiting around for Floyd to get out of prison? No, you’d want to be making money by fighting either Juan Manuel Marquez again or Tim Bradley. If you were Bob Arum would you be waiting around for Floyd to get out of prison? Hell no.
This brief has about as many TMZ references as you’ll ever find in a TQBR post, but at least they provide on ray of sunshine; R Kelly has written 32 (32!) new chapters of Trapped In The Closet, his magnum opus.
