The Official Duck Articles and Vids for Floyd.

[Chups]

No way to sugarcoat this: Mayweather fears Pacquiao
July 30, 2010
By Mike Freeman


He is possibly the best pure athlete today. Yet, despite his great physical prowess, he looks scared. He looks like a frightened man.

Floyd Mayweather usually appears gorged with bravado and his perpetually functioning ego can power a thousand cities, but these days his courage could seemingly fit neatly into a pair of a girl's dancing slippers as he continues to dodge Manny Pacquiao.

There's no other way to say this. Mayweather has a chance, directly in front of him, to make grand history. He can shut up doubters, display true mastery and etch his place into boxing lore by staging one of the great sporting events of all time. Instead of running to this opportunity, he's scurrying away from it.

Over the last several days I've had conversations with various people within boxing and no one understands why Mayweather is avoiding Pacquiao. His tactics outside the ring are as dumbfounding as they are in it.

What many in boxing believe is that Mayweather is nervous about Pacquiao and Mayweather is also enjoying his fame a little too much.

Mayweather is becoming Strayweather, a fighter more concerned about the arid glitter of celebrity than fighting the best possible opponent. He's a ship at sea and doesn't seem to care that there are numerous ports in sight.

The closest thing to a pseudo-defense of Mayweather I'm hearing is that ducking Pacquiao is part of an elaborate plan by Mayweather to increase interest -- and subsequently the money -- surrounding the fight. That, of course, would not be atypical Mayweather behavior. No one plays the media and boxing public for bigger dupes than him.

Yet the overall opinion in boxing seems to be Mayweather's concern is Pacquiao's smart brutality is an even match for his skilled quickness.

Who are we to say that a man who fights for a living is, well, afraid to fight? But Mayweather is leaving even his most strident supporters speechless with his recent game of running.

The irony is I think Mayweather would win and it wouldn't be as close as some believe. Mayweather's hand speed is still daunting and though Pacquiao is a solid boxer, he's mostly a slugger. Pacquiao is red-fanged but Mayweather would out-technique him. Apparently, I have more faith in Mayweather than Mayweather does.

Mayweather's refusal to fight Pacquiao runs contrary to everything we know about professional athletes. Imagine the New Orleans Saints getting to the Super Bowl but refusing to play Indianapolis because they feared the Colts? Or Kobe Bryant not wanting to beat LeBron James? Or Mary Ann thinking she wasn't prettier than Ginger?

What Mayweather is doing remains one of the most unusual stories in sports today. It trumps Pitino, T.O. and almost all other summer silliness because we're seeing an elite athlete refuse to be great.

Most in boxing thought we'd have a fight set by now, particularly after Pacquiao reportedly agreed to more stringent performance enhancing drug testing. There have been charges and counter charges about who is ducking who, but it's clear now that Mayweather is the one doing the running.

Pacquiao has moved on and will fight someone else in the fall while Strayweather runs in the opposite direction.

Many of history's great fighters didn't duck other greats or if they did, they didn't for long. Sugar Ray Robinson had 200 fights, sometimes with numerous fights in one year. Mayweather is proving more the exception to this rule.

Mayweather is also proving to be something I never thought I'd see.

Scared.

[Chups]

[Chups]

Mayweather ensures Pacquiao negotiations descend into farce
by Chris Mannix


Floyd Mayweather is a bully, one neatly wrapped in a cut 5-foot-8, 147-pound package. Like most bullies, Mayweather is intimidating. He sends promoters, managers and networks cowering in the corner with the mere threat of withholding his services. He holds the boxing world hostage by saying he will take his gloves and go home unless the fight isn't when he wants, where he wants and at what weight he wants. He perpetuates a lie -- like the one about his advisor, Al Haymon, not being involved in negotiations with Manny Pacquiao -- because he is confident in the fact that no one in the industry will stand up to him.

Well, someone finally did. Late Monday night, HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg -- the man in the middle of this mess -- issued a statement. In the statement, Greenburg confirmed what everyone in the world already knew. Yes, there had been negotiations. No, there will not be a fight between the two biggest names in the sport this year.

"Fights like Mayweather vs. Pacquiao are significant because of these fighters' ability to connect with sports fans around the world," said Greenburg. "It's unfortunate that it won't happen in 2010. I had been negotiating with a representative from each side since May 2, carefully trying to put the fight together. Hopefully, someday this fight will happen. Sports fans deserve it."

Mayweather's team issued a series of swift denials. But it is preposterous to suggest that Haymon, Mayweather's chief negotiator and the man Mayweather praises for his work at every ... single ... press conference would be involved in any kind of talks for a Mayweather fight without Mayweather's express approval. Greenburg has no reason to lie. Haymon has a large stable of clients that include Andre Berto, Paul Williams and Chris Arreola. But Mayweather is Haymon's golden goose. He brings home the biggest paycheck. And to believe Haymon pretended to speak on Mayweather's behalf for two months -- two months -- strains credulity to Avatar-like levels.

It didn't happen. Mayweather knew exactly what Haymon was doing, just like Leonard Ellerbe and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer did. Ellerbe is Mayweather's mouthpiece. He's a good man, one well-liked in the industry. But as sycophants come, he may be the definition. He parrots everything Floyd says -- "All roads lead to Floyd Mayweather" -- to the point where it almost doesn't matter who says it. The words are the same; the voices are just different.

Schaefer's stance is even more baffling. Schaefer, too, is well-respected in the industry and has advanced boxing as much as anyone with his innovative marketing strategies. But by backing Mayweather and denying any negotiations took place, he not only is calling his boss Oscar De La Hoya a liar -- De La Hoya, remember, went on Univision last month and said the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations were "very close" to being completed -- but he's calling every journalist he has spoken to on the subject a liar, too.

Sure, Schaefer has offered a firm "no comment" when asked about negotiations, but his words have been laced with hints that there was indeed something to comment on. Earlier this month, after Arum told SI.com that a deal had been struck, I called Schaefer looking for confirmation. Again, he said he had no comment. But he later announced, somewhat triumphantly, that I should tell Arum that he had "won the shut-up contest."

Shut up about what, exactly? Right.

The truth is Schaefer and Golden Boy have attached themselves to Mayweather because his affiliation with the company is one of the few assets keeping it viable. Click on the fighters page on Golden Boy's website and check out the four faces highlighted at the top. De La Hoya is gone, Bernard Hopkins should be and Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez are one bad loss away from potentially following them out the door.

They have a heavyweight champion (David Haye) who won't fight anybody. They have a former middleweight champion (Winky Wright) who won't either. There is talent at junior welterweight (Marcos Maidana, Victor Ortiz, Amir Khan) but not enough to carry the company. No, Golden Boy needs Mayweather and to cross him would burn a very lucrative bridge. And they are not going to do it.

Meanwhile, Mayweather sits back, content to amuse himself by working Ellerbe and Schaefer like puppets. He's comforted by the $65 million he earned in his past two fights, the kind of cash that reinforces the fantasy that he's the G.O.A.T ... when the reality is that he has yet to even prove he is the greatest of this time. He had a chance to cement that legacy this year by following up a win over Mosley with another over Pacquiao.

He passed.

But like it was with LeBron James, it wasn't so much the decision as how the decision was delivered. Coldly, and littered with a whole lot of lies.

[Chups]

Floyd Mayweather Jr. disappoints

Jackson By Scoop Jackson
ESPN.com


The phrase is the 'hood equivalent to "for better or for worse." A vow. It means if your person's ship is going down, you are going down with it and them. As the great Bernie Mac would say, it signifies "Who You Wit."


Floyd Mayweather Jr. has always been one of my ride-or-die cats. Regardless of how thick the hate got, I was ridin' with him. 'Til death do us part. Except now I've come to a part in his boxing career where faith begins to fade.

And not just my faith, but the faith of millions of others.

See, the predestined, prematurely determined "Fight of the Century" against Manny Pacquiao is off again. Not going to happen this year. If ever. And this time the reason that there will be no fight -- unlike the last time where the two sides didn't agree on a drug-testing arrangement Mayweather and his camp wanted -- seems to be Floyd.

He's refusing to fight. He's refusing to make a statement (outside of his adviser/promoter Leonard Ellerbe saying that "no negotiations have ever taken place nor was there ever a deal agreed upon ... to fight Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 13.") in defense of why Pacquiao is fighting Antonio Margarito instead on that date.

He's refusing to do anything more than let live the statement he made last month claiming he's "not really thinking about boxing right now. I'm just relaxing. I fought about 60 days ago, so I'm just enjoying myself, enjoying life, enjoying my family, enjoying my vacation."

How long does a vacation last when the other world-dominating-pound-for-pound title holder puts the ball in your court, throws down the gauntlet in your corner? How long do you enjoy life when philosophically the "other side" is publicly putting your manhood out there to be questioned?

When Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, basically called Mayweather out, claiming not only that Pacquiao's camp was willing to accept the terms of the drug testing provisions but also that there was a deal and deadline in place that Mayweather never responded to, the landscape of blame shifted.

And because Floyd's chosen to stay "on vacation" and remain silent while the most important story in boxing orbits him, for the first time in his career, to me, the greatest boxer of this generation seems scared.

And that's the last thing I want to have to accept from someone I ride or die with.

The last true ride-or-die boxer whose legacy was always in question because of the fights he seemed to be avoiding was Roy Jones Jr. Regardless of who he fought, Jones was one of the greatest fighters anyone had ever seen. He made fans fall in love with him in the ring, even when there were piles of questions and contradictions that lived outside of the ring.

Then he just stopped fighting. He stopped fighting while he was in the ring.

No one in recent boxing history let his fanbase down the way Roy did. Ask Roy Jones Jr. fans; they'll tell you about the emptiness they still feel in their guts about how Roy went out. They'll tell stories of betrayal.

And this is what scares so many of the same people (including me) about Mayweather. We don't want to go through being let down by another boxer who has attained a special place in our hearts. We can't endure or afford going through that kind of pain. Not again.

In boxing we leave ourselves vulnerable. We purposely disregard anything we don't want to hear about the fighters we love. We ignore the peripheral. By Floyd Mayweather Jr. being so non-responsive, saying nothing in return to the allegations of avoidance being thrown at him, he is forcing his fans to do what we hate doing in times like this: Notice the peripheral.

Mayweather is making it seem like he is more concerned about protecting the "zero" on the right side of his record than he is proving that he is what he's said he is: Better than Sugar Ray Robinson. Better than Muhammad Ali. That he's the "best" fighter "ever."

Which, if we are being honest, is the biggest mistake he could ever make.

There are legitimate reasons not to go through with the fight this year from Mayweather's standpoint: 1. The pending trial of Roger Mayweather for battery against a female fighter he once trained. (Mayweather Jr. could say that he doesn't want to go into the biggest fight of his career without knowing whether his uncle will be in his corner during the fight.) 2. The new lawsuit by TDF Investments LLC against Mayweather Promotions LLC for breach of contract and unpaid rent. (He could say that he needs to get this legal matter straight before he commits to another fight.) 3. The seemingly ongoing battle with the federal government over income tax issues. (He could say that although the issue seems settled, he doesn't want to risk his 2010 income exceeding $100M to avoid any future tax problems.) 4. The split of the purse isn't right or fair. (He could argue that he's a bigger draw than Pacquiao and the purse shouldn't be split 50/50.) 5. All of the above ... and then some.

And all he has to do is say just one of them. But by totally avoiding the issue staring him in the face, he is making some of us believe something about him we've heard but never wanted to believe. To fans of his, fans of what he stands for in boxing, fans who care and are more concerned about him proving he is the best fighter alive than we are him staying undefeated, this silence is worse than him getting in the ring and getting carried out on his back.

(There's also apparently information coming from those close to Mayweather's camp claiming that a large part of the hold-up on the fight is because technology isn't ready to air the fight in 3D. Seriously?)

Ellerbe said prior to the Shane Mosley fight, "At this level, for Floyd, it's not about belts. It's about fighting for his legacy and it's about money."

Right now, we can't tell. No one can.

All our hero is leaving us with is the unavoidable question he's forcing us to face about him: What happens when a reason becomes an excuse?

Every morning when I enter my office I walk past an 11-inch by 14-inch framed image of a boxer. He's throwing a low jab into the midsection of another opponent he was supposed to lose to. Adjacent to the photo are the words "Better Than Ever." The fighters in the pic? Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley, circa May 2010. I'm sure you can figure out whom the words refer to.

To me, Mayweather is one of the greatest who's ever stepped in the ring. And he will still be that whether he ever fights Pacquiao or not. But much like the LeBron James saga, it's not about the decision made, it's more about how the situation was handled.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is losing people -- fans, admirers, loyalists -- because of the way he's going about not making this fight happen. To those of us (yes, I unbiasedly include myself) who hold him down, losing to Pacquiao is secondary. We couldn't care less. With the exception of Rocky Marciano, no true warrior in the history of the fight game has exited without an "L." Talk to any true Floyd fan and they will tell you: Getting in the ring and losing to Pacquiao would be more courageous than allowing the situation to play out the way he is allowing it to play out now.

We just had Jones deceive us. We'd hate to have put our faith in another incredible boxer and have almost the same thing happen. Then we'd be the fools.

From his days as a super featherweight to his addictive quasi-seasonal performances on "24/7" that have made HBO more money than his largest purse, we roll with PBF (Pretty Boy Floyd). But by not saying anything, by not publicly giving a concrete reason why he's not making this fight happen -- by not attempting to make Arum and Pacquiao's people out to be liars -- The Pretty One is making it hard, damn near impossible, to honor him the way so many of us have throughout his career. Even at times when we knew he didn't deserve it.

There's a Roots lyric that gets to the root of where fans think Floyd's mind should be right now. It goes, "I'm inspired by the challenge that I find myself standing eye-to-eye with/To move like a wise warrior, not a coward/You can't escape/the history that you (were) meant to make/that's why the highest victory is what I'm in to take/You came to celebrate, I came to cerebrate/I hate losing, I refuse to make the same mistakes."

But there's no fight scheduled. Maybe my reference above to "scared" is an over-exaggeration. Let's say apprehensive. Or worried, concerned, backed into a corner, a little shook. Whatever.

Whatever the word, Mayweather is coming off looking like he's afraid to make this fight with Pacquiao happen. Not scared that he's going to lose, but scared that he might not win. So worried about a first loss on his spotless record that he's forgetting what champions are made of.

With this strategy of silence, it seems like the excuse has been thrown into the ring as opposed to giving a solid reason why he won't fight.

Which makes it seem like for the first time ever Floyd Mayweather Jr. -- my ride-or-die dude for life -- has run out of reasons. For himself and for those of us that loved him.

Scoop Jackson is a columnist for ESPN.com.

[PureBoxer!]

Props to Chups for making this epic thread!

[Alibata]

props to chups for making this epic thread!

ya-sebya! Ya-sebya!

[Story]

I don't know how anyone can say that Floyd isn't ducking Pac.

[brick wall]

wow that's a long list of boxing journalist that *****s will put on their hate list.

[Dick Buffman]

I'm actually starting to feel a little bad for Fraud.

Poor bastard's finally being seen for what he has always been.

[Carpe Diem]

Some of you guys are closet Floyd fans.