There is your lunch of champions, namely that of Saturday night’s champ, Floyd Mayweather, while in jail. The most entertaining read of the week was Sports on Earth’s account of his time in prison, with gems like how the stay might “infect” his career, about him getting mysterious rib injuries while reaching over to grab lotion, about him bitching out guards and getting punished and yes, about that terrible diet of his. What kind of food was he turning his nose up so he could eat Chili Cheese Fritos? Schadenfreude.
We’ll tie up some other loose ends related to Mayweather-Marcos Maidana in this edition of Quick Jabs, then dive into assorted promotional battles and a handful of other tidbits.
Quick Jabs
Besides posting that trash alleging an abortion about his ex, Shantel Jackson, Mayweather also got nasty about some plastic surgery he said she had. Miss Jackson has been showing off with new flame Nelly — who had his own amusing quips in Mayweather’s direction (oh snap Mayweather tried to bang one of Nelly’s ladies!) — and she has generally been more classy about all this than Mayweather, although the back-and-forth is like some seventh grade shit overall. Golden Boy is trying to hype all this as Mayweather being dangerously distracted, because nobody still thinks Maidana has a chance in their welterweight showdown. But hey, Mayweather gave $15,000 for breast cancer! Giving away money at all is nice, but making a show of giving 15K for breast cancer while making an even bigger show of buying nearly 100 cars from the same dealer — uh, maybe Mayweather could’ve bought one less car and multiplied that donation for breast cancer times more than a 100, huh?…
Another Mayweather stunt: He doesn’t like Maidana using a pair of Nevada state commission-approved gloves. Thankfully Team Maidana held fast on this, it looks like. Let Mayweather walk away from that money. It’s probably just meant to disrupt Maidana’s mental state…
Maidana is due to make a guaranteed $1.5 million, according to documents, compared to Mayweather’s $32 million. Expect Maidana to get more than $1.5 million by the end, thanks to a portion of the Showtime Pay-Per-View sales and international TV rights. Mayweather’s last opponent of similar stature, Robert Guerrero, was guaranteed $3 million, so it’s not clear how much better Maidana might do than Guerrero in the end, if at all…
While Mayweather has been out there decrying abortion, his protege, Adrien Broner, has been actively encouraging them among pals. That was just one quality detail of a Men’s Journal profile of Broner by Mark Jacobson that challenges the Mayweather/jail story for entertaining reads…
The promotion of “The Moment” PPV has been overshadowed a little by the fight behind the scenes by the promoter putting on the show, Golden Boy. Oscar De La Hoya and CEO Richard Schaefer don’t see eye-to-eye and it sounds more and more like a resolution is unlikely, with Schaefer likely to split. Schaefer said this could all be decided in the next couple weeks. Schaefer has mostly been cool about it, but the comments about De La Hoya “beg(ging)” for a hug from Top Rank’s Bob Arum? Not so amicable. Whatever he’s done, it appears to have worked, as Arum says the relationship is “totally repaired.” Not sure what in the hell to make of this tweet from De La Hoya, though…
The Main Events lawsuit against light heavyweight champ Adonis Stevenson, basically just to screw with him, is on. And it should be an adventure. Among the people named in the suit is powerful adviser Al Haymon, and the initial documents even include a standard Haymon contract. This isn’t just about the canceled Stevenson-Sergey Kovalev fight. Main Events’ Kathy Duva aims to expose how Haymon has been behaving, illegally, as both a manager and promoter — an allegation that has been floating around for forever — and that there’s an attempt to create a boxing monopoly. Information tends to be one result of a lawsuit. Looking forward to finding out what this all uncovers….
Super middleweight champ Andre Ward’s battle against his promoter has been going on for forever, yet somehow it’s still only getting started, by the declaration of his lawyer. This past week the California State Athletic Commission again upheld Ward’s contract with Goossen Tutor, so naturally the thinking in the Ward camp is to double down on the fight and keep it going in court. Ward has fought twice since the fall of 2012, and at this rate will be out through all of 2014 if not more. He is pissing away his prime in a Sisyphean quest to break free of a promoter who got him a career-high $1.9 million purse in his last fight to face non-star Edwin Rodriguez. I used to think Ward was intelligent…
The Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley II numbers we were promised by now aren’t materializing and apparently won’t. This means the numbers are well below the 1.2 million Arum overshot and probably well below reasonable expectations. (But hey, misery loves company. Last weekend’s Showtime tripleheader did miserable numbers, too.) That’s not to say Pacquiao isn’t still a money factory, which is why Top Rank is trying to lock him up for another two years, which appears likely even with all the business from Mayweather about how leaving Top Rank is the only way he’ll get the fight. I wouldn’t trust Mayweather to live up to his word on that to start, and nobody should have to leave their promoter to get a fight…
Psyche! Heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko said this week he would like to make another run in the Olympics, what with boxing loosening some of its amateur/professional bounds, only Ukraine and Germany quickly answered, “not gonna happen.” Got to manage those deadlines better, Wlad.
