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Floyd’s week in review

Fighters Network
30
Mar
Photo by Naoki Fukuda

Photo by Naoki Fukuda

His weeks are not like your weeks, this I guarantee.

After all, you are not the most talented pugilist on the planet and, also, if you are anything like me, you don’t drive around and flaunt brick-sized wads of cash.

Welcome again into a peek into a segment of the world of Floyd Mayweather Jr., “TBE” himself, in a video short he posted to his social platforms, entitled, “Week in Review.”

“Uh oh, uh oh, ‘Money’ Mayweather got that,” the hitter told the camera, from the front seat of one of his rides, as he fondled a brick of greenbacks and then we’re off to a slice of gym life.



Speed bag, attacking the trainer wearing a flak jacket, Floyd is getting his body into fighting shape, not, of course, that it ever seems to veer far away from that. To say the man doesn’t possess a fighter/writer physique, even between fights, that’s an understatement. Somehow, despite a vicious late-night, fast-food burger jones, Floyd never seems to creep into even middleweight territory and this is one of the traits and testaments of his excellence and superiority. He controls the action in the ring when he gloves up and he controls the degree – or lack thereof – of influence of calories which he takes in. Master of his domains – or most of them – anyway.

“Floyd needed me to put on the body suit. It is what it is; get the job done,” we hear Team Mayweather exec Leonard Ellerbe state in the next scene as we watch Floyd rip body shots, at maybe 40% of top velocity, at Ellerbe in the center ring at the Mayweather Gym. Now, I’m pretty certain there were other willing and capable beings available to wear the jacket and absorb the shots, so what the real meaning or message here, I can’t be certain. Floyd and Ellerbe had a tiff, some will recall, the specifics of which were never made public, after Mayweather’s second bout with Marcos Maidana, though things seem to be smoothed over in Floydville between them now. Many power brokers of a certain ilk like to remind underlings in various ways at various times just who the boss is, so maybe there needed to be a reminder session doled out at that time. Who knows? Only Floyd.

Next, we see footage of the some of the Floyd auto arsenal, the Bugattis and such which are the fruit of the man’s labors which he has engaged in since 1996.

Then, we see the face of Mayweather publicist Kelly Swanson, telling us why this fight matters so. “The eyes of the world are on boxing because of this fight. It’s great for boxing and really good for Floyd,” Swanson declares. Certainly it will be a success from a monetary standpoint for those blessed to share in the bounty; how it plays out for boxing as a whole, we shall have to see. Expectations are sky-high for the bout but if we see more of a technical exercise, with Floyd not being keen on trading much, then I can see buyers of $10,000 near-ring seats and those ponying up at least $90 to watch at home feeling like they didn’t get their money’s worth. We just have to see how it plays out; rest assured, that same some social media used to hype the bout by the principals will feature no lack of opinions post-fight on the subject.

The hitter says it’s important to finish up healthy, noting sagely something that seems to get glossed over by many an athlete, quixotically railing against the graying of the beard and the slowing of the limbs because “You can’t be young forever.” And no fighter of “middle age” has ever been able to not act his age as Mayweather, who has slipped almost imperceptibly in reaction time in recent years. He is truly one who could say, “38 is the new 25,” and wouldn’t be engaging in self-delusional mind games.

May 2, Mayweather versus Pacquiao, the fight of the century, don’t miss it,” he evenly declares to the camera as we go black, reminded yet again that he is unlike all of us, each of us, a true one of a kind. Manny Pacquiao will be tasked with trying to convince Floyd and the world that, in fact, TBE is like you and me and can be humbled, can be felled, can be beat. We…shall…see.

 

Follow Woods, a New York City resident, on Twitter.

 

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