By Lyle Fitzsimmons - You have your favorites. My colleagues at BoxingScene have theirs.
I have mine.
And as anyone who’s consistently read my stuff can tell you, I’m a Floyd Mayweather Jr. guy.
In 30-plus years as a fan, he’s as good as I’ve seen. And though his personal brand of ****iness tends to rub people the wrong way, I sort of like it. For the same reasons I liked Deion Sanders when he was picking off passes and high-stepping for the 49ers and Cowboys, I suppose.
He was the best in the business and he didn’t mind telling you.
In an activity like boxing – or football, in Deion’s case – where the guys with the big mouths have to stand within arm’s length of the guys they trash, I say let them talk. The ones who are good quickly earn the right to keep talking. And the ones who are nothing but talk quickly vanish.
But my fandom doesn’t take away my credibility as a journalist, as 21 years of bosses would tell you. Nor does it mean I won’t take “Money” to task when it’s warranted, as my call for him to be DQ’d after the in-ring theatrics with Zab Judah a few years back clearly indicates.
What it does tend to mean is whenever an item involving Mayweather arises, people assume I’ll take his side. And if I do indeed see things his way, they assume any argument I might make – no matter how logical in nature – is driven by that favoritism rather than fact.
It’s nonsense. But it’s predictable.
So, even as I write this on a chilly Monday morning in Gainesville, I expect follow-up commentary on boards and inboxes to lean toward the “you’re a nuthugger/why do you have a job” norms of the past. And hey, maybe a random smart-ass blogger short on ideas will take a shot as well. [Click Here To Read More]
I have mine.
And as anyone who’s consistently read my stuff can tell you, I’m a Floyd Mayweather Jr. guy.
In 30-plus years as a fan, he’s as good as I’ve seen. And though his personal brand of ****iness tends to rub people the wrong way, I sort of like it. For the same reasons I liked Deion Sanders when he was picking off passes and high-stepping for the 49ers and Cowboys, I suppose.
He was the best in the business and he didn’t mind telling you.
In an activity like boxing – or football, in Deion’s case – where the guys with the big mouths have to stand within arm’s length of the guys they trash, I say let them talk. The ones who are good quickly earn the right to keep talking. And the ones who are nothing but talk quickly vanish.
But my fandom doesn’t take away my credibility as a journalist, as 21 years of bosses would tell you. Nor does it mean I won’t take “Money” to task when it’s warranted, as my call for him to be DQ’d after the in-ring theatrics with Zab Judah a few years back clearly indicates.
What it does tend to mean is whenever an item involving Mayweather arises, people assume I’ll take his side. And if I do indeed see things his way, they assume any argument I might make – no matter how logical in nature – is driven by that favoritism rather than fact.
It’s nonsense. But it’s predictable.
So, even as I write this on a chilly Monday morning in Gainesville, I expect follow-up commentary on boards and inboxes to lean toward the “you’re a nuthugger/why do you have a job” norms of the past. And hey, maybe a random smart-ass blogger short on ideas will take a shot as well. [Click Here To Read More]
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