"Your eyes are like oceans on a faraway star."
Earlier this week, we checked in with our With Leather political correspondent, Dick Tughard, to find out if any professional athletes had been grumbling about President Barack Obama’s sudden support for same sex marriage. Sure enough, professional boxer and Filipino congressman Manny Pacquiao was the first to step forward and stomp his feet in disgust.
OR DID HE???
Forbes magazine today released their annual The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities, a top 100 list that ranks stars based on press coverage, social media buzz and whose agents paid Forbes the most money to put them on a list. At the top of this year’s 100: Jennifer Lopez, who was settling nicely into obscurity as that lady on Eric Cartman’s hand in an old episode of ‘South Park’ before ‘American Idol’ rocketed her back to prominence. Former American Idol winner Taylor Hicks also made the list, coming in at number 4,544,022 between Burnsy and the golden voiced homeless guy.
Tiger Woods managed to hang on as this year’s highest ranking sports celebrity, coming it at number 12. The only other sports guy in the top 25 was LeBron James at number 15, despite Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal coming it at numbers 2 and 3 in “Press Rank” behind Lady Gaga. I don’t know how much of this list is based on math and how much of it is based on people at Forbes trying to name 100 celebrities, so bear with me.
Here’s a full list of the sports personalities who ranked this year:
"I was thinking maybe after this we get some coffee and listen to Lady GaGa."
Being a sports-minded guy, I found myself wondering how long it would be before a professional athlete had a problem with President Barack Obama’s recent declaration that he believes same sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to that whole getting married thing. The answer was 2 whole days.
For the past year, boxer and Filipino congressman Manny Pacquiao has been studying and practicing the lessons of the Bible as the result of a dream in which he claims he was visited by God. On Friday, in response to Obama’s comments, Pacquiao took a break from training for his upcoming fight against some guy who still isn’t Floyd Mayweather, Jr. to cast people to hell.
In his statement on Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage, Pacquiao said, he calls on societies to fear God and not to promote sin.
He quoted Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
“God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other,” Pacquiao quoted the Bible.
“It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old,” he continued. (Via Digital Journal)
I don’t know if any other notable athletes have reacted to Obama’s comments because I really wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury my head with the hopes that nobody would say anything. This is obviously an incredibly sensitive issue and people on both sides have strong emotional investments in the ultimate decision of the lawmakers, so I’m going to choose my next words wisely as to not start a massive flame war…
UFC president Dana White is a polarizing guy who probably doesn’t share a lot of my opinions on things (for example, I’m guessing he doesn’t weep throughout the entirety of The Land Before Time), but he’s got a way of cutting through the bullsh*t and making some astute (if not totally obvious) points about sports, including:
1. Jeremy Lin deserves at least a good amount of the praise he’s been getting, and yeah, being an Asian guy is gonna be part of that.
2. There are a large number of African-American players in the NBA getting tons of praise and press.
3. Floyd Mayweather is a hardcore racist (“prejudiced” probably works better than “racist”, but stay with me).
4. Mayweather should probably just shut up and fight Manny Pacquiao, because he’s going to make a sh*t-ton of money doing so.
It’s the cold hard truth, and weird to imagine anyone having a realistic counterpoint besides “well, uh” or “shut up”. A transcript of the piece’s denouement, courtesy of Boxing Experts Blog:
Don’t worry about what all these other guys are doing and shooting your big mouth off on Twitter. What you should worry about is getting in there and making the fight that all the boxing fans want to see. Get in there and fight Manny Pacquiao. You don’t deserve more of the purse. If ever there were a fight in history that should be split 50/50, it’s the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. Shut up! Both of you split the money up and put on the fight that everybody, including me, wants to see.
I can’t tell you how much I’d love it if Mayweather’s response was lowering his head, shuffling his feet and mumbling, “yeah, you’re right, okay” under his breath. Unfortunately, the real response will either be completely silence or something involving jets and dogs and a wank about how many Twitter followers he has.
Maybe Floyd should just box Dana White instead.
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:
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.
