by Mark Vester
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has once again displayed his race baiting antics and his ignorant way of thinking. During a recent video interview with CBS Sports, Mayweather made some wild race baiting comments about white fighters in the sport of boxing. According to Mayweather, there are no white fighters dominating in the sport of boxing and due to that lack of domination, they got together and started mixed martial arts. Those comments were a direct response to his thoughts on the UFC 103 pay-per-view, which goes head-to-head with his pay-per-view bout with Juan Manuel Marquez on September 19.
"In boxing, we know who's dominating. Black fighters and Hispanic fighters is dominating in this sport. And this is not a racial statement but there's no white fighters in boxing that's dominating, so they had to go to something else and start something new," Mayweather said.
Maybe Mayweather is blind as well. Boxing, at the moment, is being dominated by Hispanic, Asian and European fighters. There are very few American fighters - white, black or otherwise - making a serious play in the sport. A pure display of "what you should't say on the record" - especially when your company is the lead promoter of an upcoming pay-per-view with millions of dollars at stake - and you, and your promotional partner, Golden Boy Promotions, are out there trying to secure the most pay-per-view buys possible.
Not the first time Mayweather was race baiting and letting his mouth fly off the handle. Last year during an interview with David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Press, Mayweather attacked HBO and their announce team - making comments that accused the network of having a racist agenda because they pushed and gave too much praise to Hispanic fighters, a white fighter like Kelly Pavlik and a Filipino in Manny Pacquiao - and claimed the network did not praise any black fighters.
"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."
Pavlik is having trouble landing a date on HBO and the same network spent over $3 million for Chad Dawson to fight Antonio Tarver in a rematch. The network passed on a war between Tomasz Adamek and Glen Johnson. Does that make HBO racist against white fighters? If people thought like Mayweather, they would jump to those conclusions. HBO sure wasn't racist when Mayweather was paid millions to fight guys like Sharmba Mitchell, DeMarcus Corley, Phllip Ndou and a whole string of mismatched opponents.
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