By Simon Sheppard: We’re just a couple of hours away from the so called biggest fight of the century between superstars Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, but I can’t help noticing one glaring fact.
I’ve noticed that no one is talking about it, nobody is even mentioning it. When and if Floyd Mayweather Junior loses tonight, I am pretty sure that most fans will see Floyd Mayweather Senior, his father as the reason for it. For most of his career, Floyd Mayweather Jr. had been trained by his uncle Roger Mayweather, from the tender age of sixteen when his father went to jail for a drug related conviction.
Not unlike the Freddie Roach – Pacquiao tandem, Floyd and his uncle Roger had been a winning team. So why the drastic change, and more importantly, of all fights, why now? There is that old adage that says – if ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
The last time that Roach and Floyd Senior faced each other with their respective fighters was the Pacquiao – Ricky Hatton fight, and we all saw how that ended. Floyd has been making statements about his desire to win, but it seems that he is just going through the motions. It’s like he is just trying to fulfill his obligations, saying what is expected of him to say, and reluctantly at that.
Most fans even blatantly ignored his recent comments, like some wishful thinking that Floyd didn’t say those things he said about his declining interest in the sports, maybe seen by his fans as ominous signs of Floyd’s acceptance of defeat. We can try to project our desires in our minds, interpret things, but there is no other way of interpreting Floyd’s own words, words and his statements I’ve mentioned in my previous article that came form Floyd’s own mouth, they are what they are.
So when and if Floyd loses tonight, and hear Stephen A Smith of ESPN talking about the “grave mistake of changing the winning formula”, i’e, from his uncle Roger to his father, you heard it from me first. I would like to point out that as a boxer I admire Floyd, his skills, his talent and his dedication to his craft. If he wins, I will be here to congratulate him.
He has my utmost respect as a boxer, but as a man, not so much, but that is a different matter altogether.
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