Mayweather’s apology video rings shallow
It didn’t sound any better a few days later. It didn’t play any less disgusting on YouTube. It wasn’t any less racist, any less hateful, any less ignorant.
As for the apology Floyd Mayweather Jr. subsequently released via another video, well, there are kiddie pools all around Summerlin that aren’t as shallow.
There is a quote about racism that says it is man’s greatest threat, for it includes a maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason. It would make sense in this case.
Mayweather’s words rarely offer much logic, and his insatiable need for attention finally has reached the ultimate pathetic level, even for him.
Has there ever been a better fighter who is this insecure?
You can’t spin the nearly 10-minute video clip Mayweather produced in demeaning Manny Pacquiao any way other than a racist attack of ridiculously callous proportions, although I am sure once all those who spend their lives enabling Mayweather resurface, they will do their best to explain away his repulsive rant.
That’s what they do for him — his advisers, those who pen his press releases, those whose main duties seem to be nothing more than hanging out at mansions and feeding the fighter’s massive ego.
He pays and they pander.
They make excuses and he writes their checks.
So how to combat a video in which Mayweather, in no particular order, refers to Pacquiao as a yellow chump, as a whore, as a midget, as a homosexual, as someone who he will beat in the ring and then have him cook a sushi roll and rice, as someone he will cook with dogs and cats, as someone who uses performance-enhancing drugs, as “Poochiao.”
If you’re Pacquiao, it’s easy.
Never, ever, not for a second, think again about fighting him.
Money. It’s all Mayweather cares about. It’s his nickname, for heaven’s sake. It’s how he parades through most interviews, bragging about how much he has and how much he spends and how much he bets.
It’s not the same with Pacquiao. He gives much of his money away. The guy could one day be president of the Philippines. Money will never be an issue for him. He doesn’t need to fight to have enough of it for several lifetimes.
The best response out of this entire sick episode would be for Pacquiao to not allow Mayweather to earn one cent off him, much less $40 million.
The best response from Mayweather’s sponsors would be to immediately cut ties with him, for companies like Reebok and AT&T to prove they don’t condone such racist rants.
If this is the kind of Mayweather brand such companies promote, it’s time for millions to re-think their tastes in shoes and long-distance carriers.
The best response by the Nevada State Athletic Commission would be to call an immediate hearing and make Mayweather explain his actions or threaten to suspend his license.
I’m not holding my breath on that.
“I saw the video and to me, it was nothing that has any concern in a professional capacity,” Keith Kizer, executive director of the commission, said Friday in response to a reporter’s question about Mayweather’s diatribe. “As a good official, I have respect for the First Amendment. You don’t violate the law by expressing your constitutional rights. I’ll leave it to the fans to determine whether it was appropriate trash talk.”
Trash talk? Is Kizer serious?
This went so far beyond trash talk, you can’t see it. It’s a privilege — or at least should be considered one — to be licensed to fight in this state.
Would it be freedom of speech for a licensed boxer to scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater and have some poor elderly woman drop dead of a heart attack? Would the commission be OK with that?
What, because it’s boxing, racial outbursts are nothing more than another way to sell tickets and promote a fight, that there is nothing that constitutes being a detriment to the good of the sport?
Sadly, that’s likely the majority opinion.
It’s also shameful, even for boxing.
The lack of outrage over Mayweather’s rant is just so disturbing. Where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton now? Where are those you know would be front and center posturing for every camera had it been Pacquiao racially slamming Mayweather?
Mayweather didn’t even apologize directly to Pacquiao, but rather, “to everybody because everybody felt it was a racist comment that came from me. I don’t have a racist bone in my body, you know.”
No, we don’t know. The video says otherwise, no matter how the enablers eventually spin it and look foolish doing so.
Odds suggest the fight everyone wants to see still will happen one day, because this is what boxing always has done, sold its soul and any shred of common decency for the next mega-event and pay-per-view bonanza.
Manny Pacquiao could stop that. He could tell Floyd Mayweather to take his racially disturbing video and try to make $40 million against someone else.
It’s probably a pipe dream, but we can always hold out hope.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.
