Kellerman Explains Postfight Skirmish With Floyd

[Chups]

I hope no more interviews will be conducted for Floyd Mayweather.....not only does he duck fighters....he ducks questions.

[Pullcounter]

even after getting disrespected by floyd, kellerman is still in love with floyd. kellerman didn't do anything wrong. he was just asking floyd hard questions.

[cortdawg25]

Atleast max realized why he could be perceived as wrong. he was cutting him off the whole interview. Gotta do better job next time, Maxy baby!!

[1SILVA]

Kellerman Explains Postfight Skirmish With Floyd



Mostly because of Floyd Mayweather's virtuosic performance, and partly because Juan Manuel Marquez was in over his head wearing a lead life jacket, Saturday's pay per view boxing contest featured less drama--faaar less drama--than an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. That's not to equate it with reality show dreck--Floyd's skills, we saw, are intact, and his layoff did nothing to lessen his light as the premier pugilist currently practicing. I thought we'd see at least some competitive rounds, if for no other reason that Floyd tends to take long portions of rounds of as he scouts his man and assesses weakness, but that was not to be. It was not until the post-fight postmortem, with Floyd talking to HBO's Max Kellerman, that we saw Mayweather truly tested, and in fact, tagged.

If you didn't see the bout then, or flipped off the tube before Mayweather vs. Kellerman, here's what went down.

Max started off in complimentary fashion, asking, "Better than that, how?" after Floyd said that he could've performed better in the scrap. Then things took a turn. No surprise, as Mayweather had almost guaranteed things wouldn't go smoothly with the HBO announce crew when during fight week he publicly blasted Larry Merchant and Manny Steward as being clueless about boxing and an Uncle Tom, respectively, and then chose to not participate in sit-downs with the team prior to the bout. Mayweather thanked one sponsor, Reebok and "all the sponsors that sponsored the fight," and Kellerman then tried to curtail a plugfest.

"Let's not do any commercials," he said. Floyd said he had to, because "that's seven figures."

The dynamic had shifted, from tainted to toxic, but the interview was still salvageable. And Kellerman tried. He asked about Mayweather's purchase of a weight advantage, the 11th hour contract switcheroo which saw Mayweather refuse to weigh in at the pre-arranged 144 or under limit and instead set a 146 pound limit for himself, in exchange for a settlement to Marquez, for $600,000. Lord knows, the question needed to be asked, as fight fans were abuzz about the weight issue which popped up the day before the fight, when Mayweather stepped on the scale, weighed 146 pounds, and we all wondered about the regulations for the fight, wondered if what we'd been told about a 144 pound catchweight was BS. Floyd didn't think so. "I'm not here to talk about money," the boxer said, 60 seconds after he talked about money. "What about weight?" Kellerman asked, re-phrasing the query. The fighter offered a bland "I'm happy with the victory" and a shoutout to the fans. Then Kellerman's patience, seemingly, wore thinner. "It seems that you perceive questions like that as being negative when in fact we just really want to know. It was a spectacular performance," Max said, "and people are curious about the weight, you don't want to address it all?"

"I'm here to talk about my victory, that's in the past, I'm ready to move on to bigger and better things," Floyd said, and Max answered, "I'll take that as a no." This may have been Floyd's breaking point. Kellerman veered towards the sarcastic there, and in no way can I blame him for that show of frustration, considering the state of the Mayweather/HBO production team relationship. The sparring continued, and then escalated, when Shane Mosley came into the ring. He was part of one of the promotional parties, Golden Boy, and thus had a reason for being present, if not injecting himself so forcefully into the proceedings. Mosley came towards Mayweather, and Floyd waved him closer. Floyd said that he'd let his management team figure out if it made sense to make a fight with Mosley. Mosley asked for a shot, and then his boy Bernard Hopkins, also part of the Golden Boy crew, chimed in. All parties were now bunched together, and Kellerman looked a tad nervous. For good reason--who knew if Floyd's pal Triple H would go all WWE on Hopkins, or a Rid**** Bowe possemember would club someone with a cell phone? Max tried to play peacemaker, and brokered a handshake between Floyd and Shane. Floyd was clearly miffed that his spotlight was being stolen and jawed at Mosley not to disrespect him. Max tried to change the subject. A good move, one that works when you have a screaming two year old amid a meltdown, or squawking pugilists jockeying for position on a money train down the line. "Manny Pacquiao, I thought that would get your attention..," Max began, to get Floyd's gaze off Mosley and Hopkins. It worked, and why wouldn't it; that's why Floyd took the Marquez fight, to offer a contrast to Pacquiao, who was life and death with Marquez twice. Kellerman started to go into that school of thought, and brought up the selection of Marquez as a foe. But Mayweather, perhaps still flustered because Mosley and Hopkins were in his space, took the microphone from Kellerman. "I'm going to do the talking because you do too much talking," Mayweather said, irked. Max, not willing to get into a tug o war with the fighter, threw it back to Lampley.

At the time, I was disappointed. Why'd Max do it? Here, finally, after 12 rounds of technical wizardry but a severe lack of risk-taking and drama, was the collision we'd been promised. Two titans were trading, and just like that, the plug was pulled.

I took Max to task at the time, chiding him for cancelling the compelling faceoff prematurely. But the next day I realized I hadn't considered all the angles. What it, for instance, a producer was talking in Max's ear, telling him to wrap it up, because of time constraints. So I reached out to the announcer, and got his recollection of the fight after the fight, and his analysis of where things went awry, and why.

In a phoner, Kellerman offered his take.

When Mosley came over, and then Hopkins started talking, was when "I felt it started to get out of control," he told TSS.

HBO was ready for such an eventuality, as Kellerman and producers were aware that with Floyd's fightweek barbs and refusal to step on HBO's unofficial scale, the fighter was not feeling a great deal of fondness for Team HBO. "There was a sensitivity to it getting out of control in the ring," he allowed.

Kellerman, in talking to me, was surprisingly self-critical of his handling of the interview. "Floyd's perception is 'This guy won't let me talk' and on replay I can see what he means," he said. "It's not like he wasn't justified."

But, Max said, once Mayweather took the mike from him, he felt he had no choice but to push the auto-eject button. "What am I supposed to do? The announcer has to at least have the mike."

Once again, Max shows that he loves boxing and is aware that he can be overenthusiastic. Personalities like Max only help the sport of boxing

[FLY TY]

yep max....like gbp, you ****ed up too. at least you admit it tho.

[GTR]

Max Kellerman,Benard Hopkins and Sugar Shane Mosley are all *******s.They were very disrespectful

How is Kellerman an ******* if hes asking questions that WE ALL want the answer too??? Clearly floyd is dodging every single question kellerman asked!!
Lets accept it, Floyd is as dumb as a bag of rocks when it comes to REAL questions! his answer to everything is Im the best, Money and I aint scared of nobody. Thats it!

[GTR]

even after getting disrespected by floyd, kellerman is still in love with floyd. kellerman didn't do anything wrong. he was just asking floyd hard questions.

WTH?? what was so hard about those questions??? That wasnt a Ms Universe Q&A..

[mikelovesfood]

i don't know what all this fuss is about. imho i enjoy kellermans commentating during the fight more so than merchants. post-fight interviews i'd have to give it to merchant but other than that i enjoy kellermans insight during the fight over merchant.

i remember when merchant was trying to let the viewers know that he scored the round a 10-9 round instead of 10-8 because he clearly stated that the slo-mo footage showed that the guy didn't really get a knockdown, but jim lampley went on to say that lederman scored it 10-8 because the ref officially ruled it a knockdown. merchant wouldn't listen and went on rambling. he also so many other quirky moments like when RJJ corrected him. whatever. i still enjoy kellermans commentating on technical level.

[Pullcounter]

Atleast max realized why he could be perceived as wrong. he was cutting him off the whole interview. Gotta do better job next time, Maxy baby!!

why wouldn't max cut him off??? floyd wasn't answering any questions.

[mikelovesfood]

why wouldn't max cut him off??? floyd wasn't answering any questions.

I say George Foreman or Mike Tyson the next person HBO uses to do post-interviews. hahaha