Millions of people will spend millions of dollars tonight to watch Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Jr. fight Manny Pacquiao in what is being called both the “Battle for Greatness” and the “Fight of the Century.” The purse for the match between the two welterweights is an estimated $200 million.
Academy-Award winner Jamie Foxx will sing the national anthem before the bout, and there will be a countless number of celebrities in attendance. Included among them are reportedly Robert De Niro, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Michael J. Fox, Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Rihanna, and dozens of professional athletes from outside the world of boxing.
What’s ironic — or, more accurately, sad — is that many of those in attendance, celebrities and non-celebrities alike, were outraged when the video of NFL player Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancee, now-wife in an Atlantic City elevator was leaked last year. Yet none of these people have expressed any anger over Mayweather’s long, LONG history of domestic abuse.
Apparently because there is no video of the MULTIPLE instances of Mayweather’s violence against women, people aren’t as aware of what kind of person “Money” really is. Or maybe they just don’t care.
But, never forget, he is a piece of human garbage.
Since 2001, Mayweather has, according to Deadspin, been involved in “at least seven separate physical assaults on five different women that resulted in arrest or citation, as well as several other instances where the police had to be summoned in response to an actual or perceived threat from Mayweather.”
One of the most disturbing incidents happened in 2010, when Mayweather attacked former girlfriend Josie Harris in front of their children.
From Deadspin:
Harris was asleep on her living room couch when she was jarred awake by the sound of Mayweather screaming at her about texts he had found from [another man] on her cell phone. When Harris admitted that she was seeing [the other man], Mayweather exploded. He punched her repeatedly in the rear of her head, pulled her off the couch by her hair, and twisted her arm. He screamed that he would “kill” Harris and [the other man], that he would make both “disappear.” Harris screamed for her children Koraun and Zion, aged 10 and 9, to call the police. Mayweather turned to the kids, according to the police report, and yelled that he would “beat their asses if they left the house or called the police.” Koraun tried to run up the stairs, but Mayweather’s associate blocked his path. Eventually, he was able to make it outside, and the police were summoned. Koraun told police he had witnessed his father punching and kicking his mother while she lay on the ground. By the time the cops had entered the home, Mayweather had fled, taking Harris’s cell phone with him. In a 2013 interview with Yahoo Sports, Harris stated that she believes Mayweather might have killed her that night if Koraun hadn’t been able to alert the authorities when he did.
Koraun later wrote this account of the attack for the police.
Mayweather’s sentence for almost killing one of the mothers of his children? Three months in jail, of which he only served two.
Unlike Rice, Mayweather has basically shown no remorse for any of his attacks on women. In the press coverage leading up to the fight, he’s dodged questions over his chronic domestic violence. Last year, he even had the nerve to tell CNN’s Rachel Nichols that “nothing has been proven,” and all the claims against him were just “hearsay and allegations.”
“Only God can judge me,” Mayweather said.
And so far, that’s pretty much been true. Sports media, especially ESPN, has largely given Mayweather a pass. The courts have largely given Mayweather a pass. And the boxing commission certainly hasn’t done anything to stop their moneymaker.
Instead, he’s free to throw punches — both in and outside of the ring.
