By Mark Vester

In his first interview since announcing his retirement from the sport of boxing several weeks ago, Floyd Mayweather Jr. spoke with David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Press and blasted HBO and their announce team, calling the network and announcers a bunch of racists.

"Even a guy like Jim Lampley, he praises Kelly Pavlik -- who has won some good fights, he beat Jermain Taylor twice, we have to give him credit for that -- but they talk about Kelly Pavlik, a white fighter, like he's the second coming Or they go crazy over Manny Pacquiao. But I'm a black fighter," Mayweather said. "Is it racial? Absolutely. They praise white fighters, they praise Hispanic fighters, whatever. But black fighters, they never praise.

"I've noticed it for a long time but I couldn't say anything because I had to do business with them. I'll still do business with them, but I'm done holding my tongue. I think HBO is great. But their announcers are full of shit."

"Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, Emanuel Steward, they're always talking about the negative things in my life. But I've seen Jim Lampley in the same strip club as me before. They always want to talk about me going to strip clubs, but they don't want to talk about that. He caught a court case himself, too. But when they catch a case, all they do is take them off the air a couple weeks, then it's over."

Mayweather says that unlike his first retirement after the May 2007 bout with Oscar De La Hoya, he has no plans to return to the sport in the future. He lost the desire long ago and blames the politics of the sport and the politics of HBO as the reasons for his withdrawal from boxing.

"I'm through," Mayweather said. "Once I tell people I'm through, I'm through. People say, 'Oh, he retired and came back, after the De La Hoya fight.' I didn't retire and come back. I just fought one more fight, against Ricky Hatton. And as soon as I beat him, it was, 'What about this guy?' and 'What about that guy?' It's never good enough. Some boxing people weren't going to be happy until I take a loss, and that's not ever going to happen. I achieved all I wanted to achieve.

"And if I did want to come back, I was going to make, what, $50 million (for the De La Hoya rematch)? You know what, don't call my phone unless you've got $100 million. I was truly, truly blessed to have good people around me and I was smart during my career. "I made great investments. By the end of this year, I should be a billionaire."

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