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by David Mayo | The Grand Rapids Press
Tuesday December 04, 2007, 9:03 AM
LAS VEGAS -- Some of my favorite times with Floyd Mayweather have been the daily hand-wrapping sessions. In what only can be taken as a sign of maturation, he now agrees.
Our reasons are different. For me, it's 25 minutes, every day of his gym life, that he consistently sits still and focuses on an interview, virtually without interruption. He ordered the three-minute bell turned off in the gym while we talked Monday. He ordered the hip-hop music muted, too, which is pretty serious stuff around here, wrapping without rapping.
For him, it's the easiest 25 minutes of a difficult daily grind.
"This is the best part of training, right here, the hand-wrapping," he said. "That's when you know it's time to re- ..."
He stopped short of uttering the R-word.
"... take a vacation."
Five days until the rumble, and the welterweight champion and pound-for-pound king of boxing is tired. He also is fit, and ready for Ricky Hatton Saturday night.
He still loves to spar, and if he could satisfy his commitment simply by lacing up gloves and dicing up opponents, no problem.
It's all the rest of it -- the roadwork after midnight, striking the bags, the weight training, the hundreds of sit-ups -- that burdens him now. Yes, the physical strain factors in, but the real intrigue is his dulled mental acuity for the sport at large.
He rarely watches fights. He says he has better things to do than watch inferior practitioners attempt his craft. He would not describe himself as a boxing fan.
These hand-wrapping chats first started when he was a teenager, when he loved every second of his brilliant future. Today, at 30, two decades in boxing and vast riches in the vault have made their impact.
"I enjoyed it as an amateur. I didn't mind going to the gym," he said. "But now, when I come to the gym, yeah, I'm going to train, and I'm going to train hard -- but the thing is, getting me to the gym. Before, nobody had to come wake me up, like, 'Floyd, let's go to the gym,' because I'd be the one waking them up and saying, 'Yo, let's go to the gym.' Now, they've got to come wake me up, and say, 'Floyd, you know you've got to go to the gym today.' It's been like that for a while.
"I get up in the morning, I look around, everything I've got is paid for, eight figures in the bank, and I'm like, 'What do I want to keep doing this for?' "
He says there is no magic number of victories that appeals to him. Larry Holmes got caught up chasing Rocky Marciano's record, Julio Cesar Chavez got caught up chasing 100 wins, and both ended up losing undefeated records along the way.
Many more fighters lose because the appeal of the money and fame is too alluring.
Mayweather said he and his mother, Deborah Sinclair, discuss his retirement frequently.
Mayweather said he was reminded of her feelings when he went to a movie Sunday night, "Awake," in which a man undergoing surgery meets his mother in some pre-death netherworld, and gets a good dose of I-told-you-so.
"She just thinks I've done enough in the sport, and made enough money in the sport, and I should give it up," he said.
He sounds like a fighter looking for the exit door. He insists he hasn't walked through yet.
"Hell yeah, I'm still dedicated to the training, because I know that these young kids are trying to knock me off the block," he said. "They're trying to knock me off the throne. Everybody wants my spot."
He hurts. He's rich. He wants to retire.
And as Rafael Garcia put his finishing touches on yet another hand-wrapping session, Mayweather admitted that's exactly the image he wants to leave with Hatton.
"That's the weakness I want him to chase," he said. "Everything is a trap. It's just like a mouse trap. We want him to eat the cheese and go in the hole."
Tuesday December 04, 2007, 9:03 AM
LAS VEGAS -- Some of my favorite times with Floyd Mayweather have been the daily hand-wrapping sessions. In what only can be taken as a sign of maturation, he now agrees.
Our reasons are different. For me, it's 25 minutes, every day of his gym life, that he consistently sits still and focuses on an interview, virtually without interruption. He ordered the three-minute bell turned off in the gym while we talked Monday. He ordered the hip-hop music muted, too, which is pretty serious stuff around here, wrapping without rapping.
For him, it's the easiest 25 minutes of a difficult daily grind.
"This is the best part of training, right here, the hand-wrapping," he said. "That's when you know it's time to re- ..."
He stopped short of uttering the R-word.
"... take a vacation."
Five days until the rumble, and the welterweight champion and pound-for-pound king of boxing is tired. He also is fit, and ready for Ricky Hatton Saturday night.
He still loves to spar, and if he could satisfy his commitment simply by lacing up gloves and dicing up opponents, no problem.
It's all the rest of it -- the roadwork after midnight, striking the bags, the weight training, the hundreds of sit-ups -- that burdens him now. Yes, the physical strain factors in, but the real intrigue is his dulled mental acuity for the sport at large.
He rarely watches fights. He says he has better things to do than watch inferior practitioners attempt his craft. He would not describe himself as a boxing fan.
These hand-wrapping chats first started when he was a teenager, when he loved every second of his brilliant future. Today, at 30, two decades in boxing and vast riches in the vault have made their impact.
"I enjoyed it as an amateur. I didn't mind going to the gym," he said. "But now, when I come to the gym, yeah, I'm going to train, and I'm going to train hard -- but the thing is, getting me to the gym. Before, nobody had to come wake me up, like, 'Floyd, let's go to the gym,' because I'd be the one waking them up and saying, 'Yo, let's go to the gym.' Now, they've got to come wake me up, and say, 'Floyd, you know you've got to go to the gym today.' It's been like that for a while.
"I get up in the morning, I look around, everything I've got is paid for, eight figures in the bank, and I'm like, 'What do I want to keep doing this for?' "
He says there is no magic number of victories that appeals to him. Larry Holmes got caught up chasing Rocky Marciano's record, Julio Cesar Chavez got caught up chasing 100 wins, and both ended up losing undefeated records along the way.
Many more fighters lose because the appeal of the money and fame is too alluring.
Mayweather said he and his mother, Deborah Sinclair, discuss his retirement frequently.
Mayweather said he was reminded of her feelings when he went to a movie Sunday night, "Awake," in which a man undergoing surgery meets his mother in some pre-death netherworld, and gets a good dose of I-told-you-so.
"She just thinks I've done enough in the sport, and made enough money in the sport, and I should give it up," he said.
He sounds like a fighter looking for the exit door. He insists he hasn't walked through yet.
"Hell yeah, I'm still dedicated to the training, because I know that these young kids are trying to knock me off the block," he said. "They're trying to knock me off the throne. Everybody wants my spot."
He hurts. He's rich. He wants to retire.
And as Rafael Garcia put his finishing touches on yet another hand-wrapping session, Mayweather admitted that's exactly the image he wants to leave with Hatton.
"That's the weakness I want him to chase," he said. "Everything is a trap. It's just like a mouse trap. We want him to eat the cheese and go in the hole."
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