On Saturday night, unparalleled loud mouth and cheap shot artist Floyd Mayweather, Jr. extended his career record to 43-0 after he defeated Miguel Cotto (37-3) by unanimous decision (118-110, 117-111, 117-111) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Since I’m not much of a boxing guy – all my boxing is of the foxy variety – I had to depend on Twitter for fight analysis, and words used to describe Mayweather’s victory included surgical and diabolical, while I just saw things as punchy and huggy.

But the big difference between Mayweather and Cotto came before the fight even began, as the pugilists made their way to the ring with their respective entourages. Cotto came to the ring with his son, a respectable tribute to the inspiration he provides to his own flesh and blood. Mayweather, on the other hand, was joined by Lil Wayne, 50 Cent and… Justin Bieber?

Who says that boxing has forgotten the 13-year old female demographic?

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I referred to the long-awaited Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight as boxing’s Myth of Sisyphus, noting that anyone who would attempt to organize it would repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again.

In addition to Sisyphus, it may also be boxing’s syphilis — when you first contract it you’re having a great time, but then the rash sets in and the longer you wait, the worse it gets. What I’m getting at here is that Floyd Mayweather’s mouth is a venereal disease, and calling someone out for a fight two years too late because you’re about to go to jail for punching your girlfriend in the face in front of your children is a scabby rash.

From Mayweather’s Twitter, because Don King is too old to answer the telephone:

In case you were wondering why he chose now to tweet this tweet:

Read the rest of this entry »

Before Nelson Mandela became the first South African president elected in a fully representative democratic election, he was an amateur heavyweight boxer, so it makes sense that he’d follow boxing closely and have some fights organized for his birthday party. It also makes sense that Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Manny Pacquiao is pro boxing’s Myth of Sisyphus and that anyone attempting to organize it would repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again.

From TMZ.com, who had to google “Nelson Mandela” before reporting this to make sure he wasn’t Kendall Jenner’s new boyfriend:

Nelson Mandela’s daughter just lost a $7.5 million battle in court — because that’s how much a judge ordered her to pay an L.A. boxing promoter … after she allegedly flaked on a deal to organize a Pacquiao/Mayweather fight.

TMZ broke the story … a guy named Duane Moody sued Nelson’s daughter Zindziswa Mandela for $7.5 million earlier this year — claiming she hired him to organize a Pacquiao/Mayweather bout for her father’s birthday … but ultimately flaked on the deal … and the fight never materialized.

The gist is that they expected the fight to bring in $100 million and Moody was promised 15% of the cut, but Zindziswa Mandela is apparently a person on the Internet in 2011, promised something, then just tried not to mention it again in the hopes that you’d forget about it or be too socially non-confrontational to bring it up.

Moody says Mandela is “hiding in South Africa” to avoid her obligations in the U.S. Mandela’s reps say they plan to challenge the judgment. Meanwhile, Floyd Mayeather is going to jail for 90 days for using his girlfriend’s head as a speedbag and Pacquiao is off somewhere leading a dream life where he gets to unsafely hook up with Paris Hilton and record tender Dan Hill covers.

I think the message here is to be less like Nelson Mandela and more like Manny Pacquiao.

If you don’t like pro wrestling, you may not understand the near-constant, terrible game of mental chess going on in the heads of its fans.

We don’t live in the moment — we live six months down the road from the moment, discussing and arranging and rearranging where we think the match or moment we just saw will end up. We’re always three moves ahead in a game that doesn’t exist, and that spreads to the Internet, and that spreads to news. Sadly this is as close as most wrestling fans will ever come to playing chess.

That being said, here’s a line from today’s Wrestling Observer:

Shaquille O’Neal today on the Abe Kanan show mentioned that he is in talks for a match against Big Show at this coming year’s WrestleMania.

Fans have been speculating about a Shaq vs. Big Show Wrestlemania match since July of 2009, when the two came to blows during Shaq’s guest hosting appearance on WWE Raw. Big Show is the most Shaq-sized guy WWE has and Shaq isn’t busy with basketball anymore, so hey, why not? Big Show has proven that he’s the go-to guy for the best and worst of celebrity guest matches, having a fantastic match with boxer Floyd Mayweather at Wrestlemania 24 and one of the worst pieces of sh*t you’ll ever see against Sumo Grand Champion Akebono at Wrestlemania 21.

Plus, Shaq is no stranger to pro wrestling. Ever wanted to see an old white guy rip off Shaq’s clothes in a masculine rage? That and more, below.

Read the rest of this entry »

I use the term “girlfriend” loosely. Depending on the integrity of the source it was either “the mother of his children” or his “baby mama”, but at some point we have to assume they liked each other. Regardless, he punched her “multiple times in the head with his fist”, threatened to kill her and threatened to beat up all the kids watching. That earns him $2,500 in fines, 100 hours of community service and a 12-month domestic violence program. It also earns him six months in jail, of which he’ll serve about 90 days, of which he’ll probably serve twenty minutes sitting in a jail waiting room.

The sports world is great at putting things like this into proper context. From the Los Angeles Times:

Mayweather pleaded guilty to a reduced domestic-violence misdemeanor charge and no contest to two harassment misdemeanor charges in the Clark County (Nev.) courthouse.

The jail sentence complicates, and perhaps scraps, plans for a late-spring fight between Mayweather (42-0) and Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao.

“You don’t need to be a genius to count the days,” said a person in Pacquiao’s camp, who was unauthorized to speak publicly.

USA Today is even worse, where the headline reads “Could Mayweather sentence actually help make Pacquiao bout?” Mayweather has a fight scheduled for May 5, but an opponent hasn’t been announced. More importantly, who gives a sh*t and can we please at least devote a paragraph or two per analytical blog that reads “this guy is a horrible person for doing this stuff”?

This is why I had trouble doing a Dugout when Manny Ramirez was arrested for domestic abuse … there’s nothing funny about a man beating a woman, and it pisses me off that the only option we’re offered is talking about how this is going to affect upcoming sports. F**k upcoming sports, stop beating your girlfriends.

Boxing fans and critics have spent the past 30 hours or so debating the controversial outcome of Saturday night’s WBC welterweight title match, after Floyd Mayweather knocked out defending champ Victor Ortiz in the 4th round. For those of you who missed it, Ortiz had just finished apologizing for a headbutt that he delivered to Mayweather in the previous round, and he even punctuated his apology with a kiss on Mayweather’s cheek. And then Mayweather knocked him the f*ck out.

Ortiz complained after the fight that he was still addressing the ref when Mayweather landed his two-punch sleeping pill, and some people have called Mayweather’s attack cheap and dirty. And while I’m not quoting Mayweather verbatim, I believe his response was something like, “Sorry for partying.”

Crudely recorded buttcam video of the knockout after the jump, awesome GIF version here.

Read the rest of this entry »