Insider Notebook: Mayweather Issue, Pavlik-Williams Close

By Robert Morales

Melissa St. Vil was back home in New York City on Tuesday, just two days after she said she was assaulted by her former trainer, Roger Mayweather.

"I'm sore, real banged up," St. Vil told BoxingScene.com via telephone from a friend's house.

St. Vil described in spine-tingling detail the events of Sunday morning that took place in a Las Vegas condominium owned by Mayweather that had been inhabited by St. Vil and fellow boxer Cornelius Lock the past several months.

Mayweather, who trains his nephew Floyd Mayweather Jr., was arrested on felony coercion and battery-strangulation charges, according to the Associated Press. He is free on bail, but St. Vil said not only will she be back in Las Vegas to testify against Mayweather at his trial should there be one, she will file a civil lawsuit against the 48-year-old former super featherweight and super lightweight world champion.

The scariest part of her account came as she described the tail end of the incident.

"Oh, yes, of course," said St. Vil, when asked if she feared for her life. "Oh, my goodness. "When (the officer) came, he (Mayweather) was choking me. My heart, everything was stopping. It was beating slower and slower. I have blood in my eye from the pressure.

"All the blood went to my head. I thought I was going to die. If (the officer) had not come at the time he came, me and you would not be on this phone right now. It has to be God, man. Imagine someone choking you and you are taking punches in the head at the same time."

It started just after Lock went to church. St. Vil stayed back but was supposed to meet Lock there. She said she heard the door bell ring, and that it was Mayweather. She said she did not answer the door.

"Roger has been stalking me for a while now and I have witnesses all over who can tell you that," St. Vil said. "I never opened the door. I saw him ringing the door bell and I just went to the other room."

St. Vil said next thing she knew, Mayweather had let himself in with a key. She said he wanted to know when she was leaving.

According to Lock, Mayweather knew he was moving back to Detroit and that St. Vil was moving back to New York City, where she grew up after being born in Haiti. St. Vil said when she told Mayweather she was leaving with Lock the next day, Mayweather blew up.

"He said, 'No, bitch, you getting the f**k out today,' " St. Vil said. "I said, 'I'm not going anywhere.' He pushed me and when he pushed me that is when all the fighting started. He was punching me in the face, he was punching me in the ribs. And then I hit him with a lamp trying to get him off of me.

"He said, 'Bitch, you think you a man? I'll beat you like a man.' "

St. Vil said Mayweather then opened the door and tried to push her out. She said she resisted and that's when Mayweather started choking her.

"While he was choking me with one hand, that is when he was hitting me with the other hand," she said. "That is when the officer came in just in time. They were at gun-point. He (Mayweather) stopped."

St. Vil said she unleashed the first punch, but only after Mayweather's initial push.

"I threw the first punch after he pushed me to the wall," she said. "It's a man, you know what I'm saying? I know I'm a fighter myself, but I can't beat a man."

St. Vil, a 25-year-old lightweight with a record of 1-1-1, said she is back in New York City to stay. But she will be back in Sin City to take care of business related to this incident.

"The only time I will be in Vegas is for court," she said.

Some Background

St. Vil was trained by Mayweather for her fight against Emily Klinefelter in April in Minneapolis. She lost that fight via split decision. After that, she said, Mayweather began acting differently toward her.

"I don't know where this animosity comes from," she said. "I just know he has been acting funny."

Lock - a featherweight with a record of 18-4-1 - said he noticed the same thing and that is why a while back he strongly encouraged St. Vil to leave the Mayweather gym and begin training with someone else at Johnny Tocco's gym in Las Vegas.
  
"When I realized he had some kind of issues with her for whatever reason, I tried to relieve the situation by removing her from the gym," Lock said. "For some reason, he didn't like Melissa and I didn't understand why."

When pressed, Lock said there had been some scuttlebutt about St. Vil not paying Mayweather, but that St. Vil had agreed to pay Mayweather a percentage of her purses. Lock also wondered if Mayweather might have had romantic feelings toward St. Vil that were not returned. But what really confused Lock was the way everything went down Sunday. He said Mayweather came over last Thursday and spoke to him and St. Vil. Lock - who  was trained by Mayweather - said Mayweather did not show up to his July 24 fight against Antonio Escalante in El Paso, Texas.

Lock said Mayweather was talking to him about that fight as well as asking St. Vil about the prospects for her fight this past Saturday - a day before the Las Vegas incident - against Jennifer Han in Las Cruces, N. M.
  
Lock and St. Vil said that Mayweather also let himself in with a key that day. As they were talking, Lock said there were packed boxes all around and Mayweather knew he and St. Vil were to move out of the condominium on Monday; Lock said the rent was being paid by his manager, Billy Summers.

"I told him after she comes back (from her fight) we were leaving," said Lock, 30. "It was obvious we were leaving and not coming back to that residence. He knew she was leaving the next day. Why would he come over the day before? ... He didn't show up to my last fight and I was probably going to get another coach anyway. I definitely wasn't going to stay at his condo anymore and I don't know if he was upset about that."
  
Interestingly, Lock fights for Mayweather Promotions, Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s company. He therefore spoke in uneasy tones about all of this.

"I'm under contract to Mayweather Promotions, so I don't know how all of this is going to play out," Lock said via telephone from Detroit. "But I'm definitely going to get another trainer."
  
For the record, St. Vil was asked if she and Lock are dating. She said they are only friends.

There are, of course, two sides to every story. Efforts to reach Roger Mayweather through Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe were unsuccessful.

Schaefer Not Expecting Any Problems

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is preparing for his Sept. 19 fight against Juan Manuel Marquez at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. If his uncle Roger is not able to work his corner because of his legal problems, Richard Schaefer does not necessarily see that is a hindrance to Floyd Jr. Schaefer is CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, which promotes Marquez.

"I don't know the details," Schaefer said of the aforementioned charges against Roger Mayweather. "I don't know if it is going to become an issue. The only thing I do know is when Floyd Mayweather fought Carlos Baldomir, he didn't have Roger in the corner.

"Floyd Mayweather is just such a gifted athlete, he doesn't really need anybody in his corner when it comes down to it. Of course, Roger gives him a certain confidence level. But he's gone through something similar before, Floyd, where he didn't have Roger in the corner and he looked very good against Baldomir."

Roger Mayweather was not in his nephew's corner for his November 2006 lopsided victory over Baldomir in Las Vegas because he was under suspension for his role in a ring riot during Floyd Jr.'s fight against Zab Judah the previous April. Roger Mayweather later that year also began serving a six-month jail sentence for domestic assault.
  
Of course, if Uncle Roger is not available, Floyd Sr. could step right in.

Arum: Pavlik-Williams Making Progress

BoxingScene.com spoke to promoter Bob Arum on Wednesday via telephone from Aspen, where he said he has been hiking seven to eight miles per day.

"I'm totally exhausted," said Arum, 77. "That's a lot for an old guy like me."
 
Arum wasn't too tired to talk about the ongoing negotiations for a fight between middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and former welterweight and current interim junior middleweight champion Paul Williams.

At one point it appeared this fight - which would probably be held Oct. 3 in Atlantic City - might be dead in the water because Williams promoter Dan Goossen was not happy with the slice of the pie being offered his side.

But Arum on Wednesday sounded optimistic.

"I think we're getting very close," Arum said. "We're not there, but we're getting close. We are not wide apart like we were a week ago."

Arum was informed that rumor had it the most recent offer being made to Goossen and Williams was $1.75 million. Without admitting that number was true, he did say "there has been an adjustment, yeah," when asked if the ante had been upped.

Arum said everyone would like to see this fight.

"So, hopefully, we will get it done," he said.

Arreola-Klitschko Done

A source very close to the negotiations has told BoxingScene.com that the heavyweight fight between champion Vitali Klitschko and top contender Chris Arreola is a done deal for Sept. 26 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
  
The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a news conference would be held Aug. 13 in Los Angeles to make the formal announcement.

Dan Goossen, who promotes Arreola, could not be reached for comment. But at Saturday's card in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Arreola
said that as far as he was concerned the deal was already consummated.
  
"I'm already training like it's a done deal," Arreola said.

Arreola (27-0, 24 KOs) lives in Riverside, Calif., but he was born in Los Angeles. He is trying to become the first heavyweight champion of Mexican ancestry.

Klitschko will be returning to the arena where he gave Lennox Lewis hell before Lewis won via 6th-round tecnical knockout because of nasty cuts sustained by Klitschko, who was ahead by two points on all three scorecards. Lewis was defending his title that night in June 2003. He never fought again.

Klitschko (37-2, 36 KOs) returned to Staples Center two fights later - in April 2004 - and stopped Corrie Sanders in the eighth round to win the title vacated by Lewis.

At 38, Klitschko is 10 years older than Arreola.

De La Hoya: Mosley Has Himself To Blame

Oscar De La Hoya last week was asked about "Sugar" Shane Mosley, a partner in De La Hoya's Golden Boy company. Mosley is coming off one of the biggest victories in his career - a ninth-round stoppage of Antonio Margarito in January in Los Angeles - yet here he sits without a partner for his next dance.

"Shane put himself in a very difficult position because of his last fight with Antonio Margarito," De La Hoya said. "Obviously, nobody wants to fight him and now you have to move on to the young guys that are coming up, the (Andre) Bertos, the guys nobody wants to fight either and he is willing to fight.

"It's a matter of him just making his mind up on who he wants to fight if it's not going to be Manny Pacquiao, and we will make the fight happen."
  
Mosley tried everything he could to lure Pacquiao into a fight, but Pacquiao instead is scheduled to fight Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14 at a catch-weight of 145 pounds. Mosley has not fought at lower than 146 pounds for the past 10 years, but Mosley early on said he would meet Pacquiao at 143. Then he really stretched things by saying he would take on Pacquiao at 140, the weight class at which Pacquiao knocked out Ricky Hatton in the second  round in May.

"He really wanted that fight to happen," De La Hoya said. "It doesn't surprise me how persistent he was because that's the kind of warrior he is. It shocked me that he even wanted to go down to 140. That is how badly he wanted the fight."

It appears there is a chance that Mosley and Berto - both of whom are welterweight champions - could fight in December. BoxingScene.com publisher Rick Reeno reported that Schaefer will be in New York this week to explore that opportunity. Schaefer is scheduled for a sit-down with Berto promoter Lou DiBella and HBO.

Huerta-Wilson II?

Golden Boy's card last Thursday at Club Nokia in Los Angeles was a success in that the fights were good and the attendance - 2,276 - was terrific for a club card.

Of course, it was not all good because Golden Boy featherweight Charles Huerta was knocked the heck out by Derrick Wilson in the first round of the main event.

Huerta came in 11-0 with seven knockouts, but he was overwhelmed by a very quick-starting Wilson (5-0-1, 2 KOs), who leveled Huerta with a vicious left hook from which Huerta never rose.

Schaefer had a few thoughts on this rather stunning performance by Wilson.

"I think (Huerta) got caught by surprise," said Schaefer, who was sitting in the balcony with his wife. "I think he got caught cold there and I think it is going to be a different story in the rematch."

Schaefer said he has already told Golden Boy matchmaker Eric Gomez to go to work on putting together a return fight.

"That is a fight I think people would want to see again," Schaefer said.

Schaefer also said that just because Huerta now has a knockout loss on his ledger, that doesn't mean he still can't realize his dream of becoming a world champion.

"Just because he lost a fight ... we need to be a little bit more forgiving," Schaefer said. "All of us, promoters, managers, fans, media. He is a young fighter. As long as he uses that as a learning experience. He might have lost the battle, but not the war."

Huerta, of Paramount, Calif., is 22.  

Robert Morales covers boxing for the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, and BoxingScene.com.