By John F. McKenna (McJack): Undefeated superstar World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) who takes on WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) on May 5 at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas is back at it again.
On Monday in Puerto Rico, on the first day of the media tour to promote his fight with Cotto, Mayweather resorted to the same old, tired tactic of going after his personal nemesis WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s). Floyd referred to “Pacman” as a cheater. Although Floyd did not use the word steroids, the implication is clear. Without a shred of evidence to back up his insinuations, the Mayweather camp has hurled an unending barrage of insinuations at the Filipino Icon inferring that he has used Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDS) in his move up through the weight divisions. Manny has managed to win titles in eight divisions along the way. More impressively, Pacquiao won Fighter of the Decade for the years from 2000 to 2009.
Pacquiao finally after having enough of the unproven accusations filed a defamation lawsuit through high profile attorney Dan Petrocelli. On numerous occasions Floyd ducked the deposition. It goes without saying that if Mayweather had anything concrete to back up his claims, he would have trumpeted it to the world long ago. It should be noted that Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions executives publicly apologized for their part in making the accusations against Pacquiao. Manny promptly dropped the lawsuit against Golden Boy.
Mayweather has what appears to be an obsession about everything Pacquiao. He rarely fails to miss an opportunity to take a swipe at Manny. When Mayweather reserved the MGM Grand Arena last fall for May 5, the first word that came out of the Mayweather camp was that it was being reserved for the “little fella”. Many boxing observers bought into the Mayweather hype and assumed that the “little fella” was Manny Pacquaio. Of course if you were serious about lining up a fight with Pacquiao why wouldn’t you just say so instead of being vague about it? Mayweather’s fans again ate it up willing to follow their pied piper wherever he led them. And if you were serious about fighting Pacquiao, why would you be so presumptuous as to reserve a venue for such an important fight without even contacting team Pacquiao? After all, the selection of a date and venue is part of the negotiating process for any big fight.
It was not always that way with Mayweather. Floyd was caught on a 2007 video in which he highly praised Pacquiao, describing him as an extraordinary fighter and that he loved watching him. Of course that all changed when Pacquiao moved up in weight and was perceived as a threat to “Money” Mayweather. That was all before Floyd began to obsess about the man that he refuses to fight. That was before all the immature tweets that Floyd sent out on his Twitter account, as if the tweets were a substitute for real and honest negotiations.
Comments are closed.