By Rick Reeno
MGM Grand, Las Vegas - WBC/WBA 147 and 154 pound champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., and his close adviser Leonard Ellerbe, are refusing to entertain any further questions related to the discipline of NFL player Ray Rice.
Mayweather made national headlines on Tuesday, after stating that the NFL should have stood firm on their original punishment of Rice, for knocking out his then-fiancee in an Atlantic City elevator. The NFL initially handed Rice a two-game suspension but when a new video of the incident surfaced earlier this week - Rice was given an indefinite suspension and cut by the Baltimore Ravens.
Reporters continue to ask Mayweather for his opinion on the matter, because the boxer has had his own domestic abuse issues over the years. Mayweather spent two months in a Las Vegas jail in 2012, after pleading guilty to reduced domestic abuse charges stemming from an attack on the mother of three of his children. He is now facing a civil lawsuit from his former fiancee, Shantel Jackson, who claims he assaulted her and threatened her with a gun.
"I don’t condone what happened. If I offended anyone, I apologize. I have this tough, rugged fighter in front of me and that’s what I have to focus on. I'm not perfect, I make mistakes and I don't condone that at all. If I offended anyone I apologize. I apologize to the NFL. I strive to be a perfectionist but no one is perfect. I don't condone what happened. I'm not even involved in football. I'm a boxer. If I'm not focused on it I don't know why anybody else is," Mayweather said.
"I see it like this, if this is about boxing, me and Maidana - ya'll shouldn't even be asking me about no football. I'm not an NFL player. I'm a boxer, that's what I do for a living. It's none of my business what goes on in someone else's household."
"I don't hear nobody talk about how I feed the homeless or how I give back to the American citizens or how I have homes built. I never hear nobody talk about that, but as soon as there is something negative....
Ellerbe was a little more direct with the press.
"At the end of the day, no more questions and no more talking about this. Floyd Mayweather doesn't condone that kind of behavior. It's none of his business what goes on with anybody else. Floyd Mayweather's focus is on this fight, not on anything that doesn't relate to him. I don't know what anybody else wants him to say, he doesn't condone that kind of behavior. We don't need to ask anymore of those questions. We've been very, very clear. And we're not going to answer anymore of those questions," Ellerbe said.
